supercilious
adjective
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What is the origin of supercilious?
Arrogant and disdainful types tend to raise an eyebrow at anything they consider beneath them. The original supercilious crowd must have shown that raised-eyebrow look often, because the adjective supercilious derives from "supercilium," Latin for eyebrow. (We plucked our adjective and its meaning from the Latin adjective superciliosus.) "Supercilious" has been used to describe the censoriously overbearing since the late 1600s, but there was a time in the 1700s when it was also used as a synonym of another "supercilium" descendent, "superciliary" ("of, relating to, or adjoining the eyebrow"). Although the eyebrow sense of "supercilious" is now obsolete, it does help explain what ornithologist John Latham meant in 1782 when he described a "Supercilious K[ingfisher]" with a narrow orange stripe over its eyes.
Examples of supercilious in a Sentence
Neal Gabler, Life: The Movie, 1998
Cross' popular academic sleuth Kate Fansler returns, this time as a guest professor at the down-at-the-heels Schuyler Law School, where she has been asked to teach a course on literature and the law. Ardent feminist Kate soon finds that not only is Schuyler a bastion of intolerant, supercilious white males, but worse, any attempt by women or minorities to be heard is quickly quashed by the old-boy network.
—Emily Melton, Booklist, 15 Dec. 1994
Jorgeson had a sharp tongue and was so supercilious in his remarks that I didn't know quite how seriously I should take this talk, but I enjoyed his humor and I did believe he had the sensibilities of an artist.
—Thom Jones, New Yorker, 2 Dec. 1991
the supercilious art dealer rolled her eyes when we asked if she had anything for under $1,000
Armond White, National Review, 30 Apr. 2025
Arthur is … a lot too, but with a supercilious edge?
—Nina Metz, Chicago Tribune, 27 Mar. 2025
Not that Allen wasn’t above poking fun at a friend: In many of their films together, Allen presented Roberts as so cool-headed as to verge on the comically supercilious.
—Peter Tonguette, Washington Examiner - Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, 21 Feb. 2025
Still, in many voters’ minds, the association between Democrats and supercilious scolding seems hard to shake.
—Andrew Marantz, The New Yorker, 14 Dec. 2024
Even Lu, most closed and supercilious of the bunch, has weird, troubled reservoirs of shame that gradually start to froth and bubble.
—Sara Holdren, Vulture, 19 Sep. 2024
Though emerging out of segregation, Black Greek-letter organizations, too, had supercilious standards for their members and rules about who could join.
—Jazmine Hughes, The New Yorker, 21 Oct. 2024
The former focuses on man and nature (namely Navajos and Churro sheep); the latter, an ontological turn from Diné materiality toward Western enlightenment’s supercilious man-versus-nature divide.
—Petala Ironcloud, ARTnews.com, 9 Oct. 2024
That protest puts her in the crosshairs of the supercilious hospital bureaucrat Andrew (Simon McBurney), who seems very willing to throw Liz under the bus, particularly once those grieving parents complain to the tabloid press.
—Dennis Harvey, Variety, 17 Sep. 2024
Cite this Entry
“Supercilious.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/supercilious. Accessed 6 Jul. 2025.
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supercilious
adjective
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