Word of the Day Archive
Sunday July 16, 2000
deride \dih-RYD\ , transitive verb:
To laugh at with contempt; to subject to ridicule or make sport of; to mock; to scoff at.
She was inclined to deride Mr. Hemingway's mania for firearms and thereby often hurt his feelings.
-- "Hemingway's Prize-Winning Works Reflected Preoccupation With Life and Death", New York Times, July 3, 1961
I had no desire to endorse idiocy -- but neither could I be seen to deride a colleague.
-- Michael Foley, Getting Used to Not Being Remarkable
It is in the nature of tyranny to deride the will of the people as the voice of the mob, and to denounce the cry for freedom as the roar of anarchy.
-- William Safire, "The Counter-Revolution", New York Times, May 22, 1989
Deride comes from Latin deridere, from de-, "down from" + ridere, "to laugh." It is related to ridiculous. Derision is the act of deriding, or the state of being derided.
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for deride
