Library / English Dictionary

SPURN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Reject with contempt

Example:

She spurned his advances

Synonyms:

disdain; freeze off; pooh-pooh; reject; scorn; spurn; turn down

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Hypernyms (to "spurn" is one way to...):

decline; refuse (show unwillingness towards)

Verb group:

decline; pass up; refuse; reject; turn down (refuse to accept)

refuse; reject; turn away; turn down (refuse entrance or membership)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "spurn"):

rebuff; repel; snub (reject outright and bluntly)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

spurner (a person who rejects (someone or something) with contempt)

Credits

 Context examples: 

That they were false, the general had learnt from the very person who had suggested them, from Thorpe himself, whom he had chanced to meet again in town, and who, under the influence of exactly opposite feelings, irritated by Catherine's refusal, and yet more by the failure of a very recent endeavour to accomplish a reconciliation between Morland and Isabella, convinced that they were separated forever, and spurning a friendship which could be no longer serviceable, hastened to contradict all that he had said before to the advantage of the Morlands—confessed himself to have been totally mistaken in his opinion of their circumstances and character, misled by the rhodomontade of his friend to believe his father a man of substance and credit, whereas the transactions of the two or three last weeks proved him to be neither; for after coming eagerly forward on the first overture of a marriage between the families, with the most liberal proposals, he had, on being brought to the point by the shrewdness of the relator, been constrained to acknowledge himself incapable of giving the young people even a decent support.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Sam, loud and overbearing as he was, she rather regretted when he went, for he was clever and intelligent, and glad to be employed in any errand in the town; and though spurning the remonstrances of Susan, given as they were, though very reasonable in themselves, with ill-timed and powerless warmth, was beginning to be influenced by Fanny's services and gentle persuasions; and she found that the best of the three younger ones was gone in him: Tom and Charles being at least as many years as they were his juniors distant from that age of feeling and reason, which might suggest the expediency of making friends, and of endeavouring to be less disagreeable.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

At Lowood, indeed, I took that resolution, kept it, and succeeded in pleasing; but with Mrs. Reed, I remember my best was always spurned with scorn.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

In the course of the tale I had mentioned Mr. Lloyd as having come to see me after the fit: for I never forgot the, to me, frightful episode of the red-room: in detailing which, my excitement was sure, in some degree, to break bounds; for nothing could soften in my recollection the spasm of agony which clutched my heart when Mrs. Reed spurned my wild supplication for pardon, and locked me a second time in the dark and haunted chamber.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

But again when I reflected that they had spurned and deserted me, anger returned, a rage of anger, and unable to injure anything human, I turned my fury towards inanimate objects.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

They were for ever ardent and craving; still I desired love and fellowship, and I was still spurned.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

They spurn and hate me.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)