Definition of DERIDE

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

The company also erected a tent roughly the length of two football fields behind its factory to assemble Model 3 sedans, an idea that some auto industry veterans derided as crazy. — David R. Baker, SFChronicle.com, "Tesla factory production jumps, and Model 3 hits elusive goal," 2 July 2018 Kirsten Gillibrand More than the others, Gillibrand focused on Trump in her opening remarks, deriding his attacks on immigrants, press freedom, and workers trying to organize into unions. — Herb Jackson, USA TODAY, "Ahead of 2020 election, liberals quiz Booker, Gillibrand, Harris, Sanders and Warren," 13 June 2018 Defensive Midfielder: Dunga (Brazil 1994) Despite being one of the heroes of Brazil's World Cup triumph in 1994, Dunga wasn't so much unsung as positively derided at home. — SI.com, "World Cup Countdown: 3 Weeks to Go - 11 of the Greatest Unsung Heroes in FIFA World Cup History," 30 May 2018 President Donald Trump has recently attacked Amazon as an economic scourge, deriding the company as a tax dodger and an abusive customer of the U.S. Postal Service. — Michael Liedtke, chicagotribune.com, "Amazon reveals its Prime service has 100 million members," 19 Apr. 2018 Kim, a supervisor in a downtown district who is running for mayor on June 5, gave a speech deriding a housing bill by state Sen. Scott Wiener, her political rival. — Rachel Swan, San Francisco Chronicle, "Kim runs against Wiener housing bill in her race for mayor," 6 Apr. 2018 Photo: pyongyang press corps/pool/epa-e/EPA/Shutterstock During months of massive street protests in Seoul, the chaebols were derided as accomplices. — Eun-young Jeong, WSJ, "Business Scandals Rocked South Korea, but Promised Overhaul Underwhelms," 30 Nov. 2018 The surface similarities between the two middle movies’ plots practically write themselves: both films are older, darker second installments in a prequel series where the opening salvo was derided as too kid-centric. — Chaim Gartenberg, The Verge, "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is the franchise’s Attack of the Clones when it should be The Last Jedi," 27 Nov. 2018 As the Los Angeles Times points out, that's a lot of heavy manufacturing planned for a region that is often derided for chasing away factories and large headquarters operations with high costs and regulations. — Eric Berger, Ars Technica, "Rocket Report: Why SpaceX stays in LA, Russia moves on, buy a missile silo," 19 Oct. 2018

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.