condescending 1 of 2

adjective

Definition of condescendingnext
as in patronizing

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condescending

2 of 2

verb

present participle of condescend
1
as in stooping
to descend to a level that is beneath one's dignity I will not condescend to answer the sore loser's charge that I cheated in order to win the race

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2
as in cutting
to assume or treat with an air of superiority wealthy people who tend to be condescending toward their poor relations

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of condescending
Adjective
The responses might attempt to give you a cheery mental pickup, but do so in a condescending way. — Lance Eliot, Forbes.com, 21 Mar. 2026 And the motivational quotes on the walls are so condescending. — Adriane Quinlan, Curbed, 23 Feb. 2026
Verb
On top of this, his tone is condescending by suggesting that any claim for material recompense by Black people can only come from a Black nationalist and bourgeois initiative. — Literary Hub, 27 July 2026 Glassman has a reputation for being nasty and condescending to residents who disagree with him. — Sun Sentinel Editorial Board, Sun Sentinel, 16 June 2026 See All Example Sentences for condescending
Recent Examples of Synonyms for condescending
  1. patronizing
  2. stooping
  3. arrogant
  4. domineering
  5. disdainful
  6. bossy
  7. supercilious
  8. impudent
Adjective
  • Giving a mother who kills preferential treatment harkens to the patronizing assumption that women lack agency.
    — Dr. Susan Hatters Friedman, Hartford Courant, 23 Aug. 2026
  • This was 1872, and the pious (and patronizing) commentators of the time muttered that Damien’s unvarnished personality was due to his simple farm upbringing in rural Belgium.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 20 July 2026
Definition of patronizing
Verb
  • In what is likely his final World Cup, the 34-year-old scored his first international major tournament goal, stooping to nod Liverpool team-mate Ryan Gravenberch’s cross home after 50 minutes.
    — Jacob Whitehead, New York Times, 14 June 2026
  • Sharan enlisted Joshy’s architecture practice, Naked Volume, to handle his site, which already had a small, stooping home on its grounds.
    — Vaishnavi Nayel Talawadekar, Architectural Digest, 24 May 2026
Definition of stooping
Adjective
  • Continue reading … BROKEN COVENANT — Javier Milei blasts UN as 'useless' den of 'fatally arrogant parasites' in raucous speech.
    — , FOXNews.com, 24 Sep. 2026
  • Everybody on our side understands that impeachment is a critical tool in the toolbox for constitutional self-defense against a president acting like a king, an imperious, lawless, arrogant king.
    — NBC news, NBC news, 6 Sep. 2026
Definition of arrogant
Adjective
  • Sources said Gunning plays Annie, a quietly dutiful wife who has sacrificed her ambitions to raise four sons under her domineering husband, Duncan.
    — Matt Grobar, Deadline, 9 Sep. 2026
  • Fern proves himself as a true actor’s director, offering plum roles to Paulson, Watts and two-time Oscar winner Dianne Wiest as their chaotic and domineering mother.
    — David Canfield, HollywoodReporter, 8 Sep. 2026
Definition of domineering
Adjective
  • As Cusk has become more disdainful of fiction and more insistent on the documentary function of art, her work has become vaguer and less concrete, fading like old ink into blurred indeterminacy.
    — Becca Rothfeld, New Yorker, 16 Aug. 2026
  • It was delivered with sneers, an ugly, small-minded few minutes in support of the sclerotic, disdainful of dynamic change.
    — Kevin Rennie, Hartford Courant, 25 July 2026
Definition of disdainful
Adjective
  • Debb tried to take control of the Kucha tribe early, but the others weren’t having it and saw her as bossy, voting her out at the first Tribal Council.
    — Dalton Ross, Entertainment Weekly, 24 Sep. 2026
  • Under normal conditions, someone who’s bossy or pushy can come across as arrogant and annoying.
    — Matthew Pittman, The Conversation, 17 July 2026
Definition of bossy
Adjective
  • Managing these risks is not something these business leaders, or their respective state actor partners, need overly supercilious advice on.
    — Radu Magdin, Forbes.com, 10 July 2026
  • This Cannes Directors’ Fortnight prizewinner sets out its pitch-black-comic stall early with a prologue in which, after a brief contretemps, local man Raoul Brun (Jean-Louis Coulloc’h) blows his supercilious neighbor’s head off with a shotgun and then disappears.
    — Jessica Kiang, Variety, 16 June 2026
Definition of supercilious
Adjective
  • The movie is an epic series of harrumphs and harangues, propelled from room to room—and, in time, out into the world beyond the estate—by a spirit of impudent absurdism and corrosive cynicism which seems to emanate from Digger himself.
    — Justin Chang, New Yorker, 30 Sep. 2026
  • Mantello wasn’t being impudent.
    — Theater Critic, Los Angeles Times, 6 May 2026
Definition of impudent

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Cite this Entry

“Condescending.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/condescending. Accessed 3 Oct. 2026.

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