Choose the Right Synonym for deride

ridicule, deride, mock, taunt mean to make an object of laughter of. ridicule implies a deliberate often malicious belittling. consistently ridiculed everything she said deride suggests contemptuous and often bitter ridicule. derided their efforts to start their own business mock implies scorn often ironically expressed as by mimicry or sham deference. youngsters began to mock the helpless wino taunt suggests jeeringly provoking insult or challenge. hometown fans taunted the visiting team

Did You Know?

When deride was borrowed into English in the 16th century, it came to us by combining the prefix de- with ridēre, a Latin verb meaning "to laugh." Ridēre is also the ancestor of the English words risible ("laughable") and ridiculous. Of course, English has a number of words meaning "to laugh at unkindly"; in addition to deride, we have ridicule, mock, and taunt. Deride suggests laughter loaded with contemptuousness or bitterness, whereas ridicule implies a deliberate often malicious belittling ("consistently ridiculed everything she said"). Mock implies scorn often ironically expressed by mimicry or sham deference ("mocking the speaker's impassioned tones"). Taunt suggests jeeringly provoking insult or challenge ("hometown fans taunted the visiting team").

Examples of deride in a Sentence

my brothers derided our efforts, but were forced to eat their words when we won first place

Recent Examples on the Web When someone returned with a large kill to share, the norm was not to praise his generosity but to deride him. — Daniel Immerwahr, The New Republic, "Paleo Con," 24 Mar. 2021 Economics textbooks draw the static Phillips Curve relating inflation and unemployment, and deride the conventional wisdom of the time that the Fed could permanently lower unemployment by tolerating a little more inflation. — John H. Cochrane, National Review, "Does the Fed’s Monetary Policy Threaten Inflation? (Contains Spoilers)," 9 Mar. 2021 Authorities in Beijing keep draining Hong Kong of its civil liberties, facilitate repression on an Orwellian scale in Xinjiang, and deride the democratic successes of Taiwan as the workings of an illegitimate, renegade government. — Washington Post, "Myanmar’s coup is awkward for China," 24 Feb. 2021 Statehood would provide another lightning rod for Republicans, who deride the idea as an unconstitutional power grab intended to entrench Democrats with the virtually certain election of two Democratic senators. — New York Times, "D.C. Statehood Backers Want to Be Part of Broad Voting Rights Measure in the Senate," 26 Mar. 2021 Hendren is a combative man of large ego who tends to deride foes. — John Brummett, Arkansas Online, "Leaving the cult behind," 21 Feb. 2021 After the Washington Post published a piece about the lawsuit, many on social media were quick to believe the claims and deride the chain as a bad actor. — Soleil Ho, San Francisco Chronicle, "If Subway's tuna isn't tuna, what is it? Bay Area lawsuit won't say," 28 Jan. 2021 Some developers deride this as an unfair and unwarranted tax. — Mark Gurman, Bloomberg.com, "Google to Increase Push for Apps to Give Cut of In-App Purchases," 25 Sep. 2020 Trump’s speeches, yet most of them could reject it, or even share it in order to deride or ridicule it. — Siva Vaidhyanathan, The New Republic, "Making Sense of the Facebook Menace," 5 Jan. 2021

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'deride.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.