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Definition of condescension
1 : voluntary descent from one's rank or dignity in relations with an inferior
2 : patronizing attitude or behavior scoffing condescension by the “we know better than you” people — A. J. Anderson
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Recent Examples of condescension from the Web
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And Dr. Kelly could talk, and more importantly listen, to people from all backgrounds without condescension.
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Her newfound faith is met with passive discomfort from her granddaughter and—inexplicably—totally unsympathetic condescension and a sense of personal betrayal from her husband.
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There have been smaller donations from time to time — $25,000 here, or $10,000 there — but the treatment has bordered on condescension.
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Ted’s condescension hung in the air like the stench from a cat box in an apartment with 40 cats belonging to an elderly women who had just been found dead.
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But another manifestation is in the casual condescension that can surround vocational education.
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While respecting recent scholarship on 17th-century thought, the Nadlers sought to make these stories and ideas as accessible and engaging to as broad an audience as possible without condescension.
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Through the rest of the 70s and into the early 80s, Demme made low-budget gems about quirky characters and their worlds, always with an eye toward empathy and affinity, never with condescension.
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A few historians have provocatively followed a different intellectual path, avoiding both the bloodlessness of the new social historians and the psychologizing condescension of the old Hofstadter school.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'condescension'. Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Origin and Etymology of condescension
Late Latin condescension-, condescensio, from condescendere —see condescend
CONDESCENSION Defined for English Language Learners
condescension
playDefinition of condescension for English Language Learners
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: the attitude or behavior of people who believe they are more intelligent or better than other people
Learn More about condescension
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See words that rhyme with condescension Spanish Central: Translation of condescension Nglish: Translation of condescension for Spanish speakers
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