as in insulting
intended to make a person or thing seem of little importance or value
thanked her for the gift and then added the denigrative aside, "Not that it's anything special!"
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for denigrative
Adjective
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Stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni is insulting because a macaroni was a pejorative term used to describe a fashionable man with feminine traits of 18th-century Britain.—
Kurt Snibbe,
Oc Register,
2 July 2025 -
Conversations revealed an ongoing dialogue that was not only deeply insulting to Read, but morally offensive to women broadly.—
Gemma Allen,
Forbes.com,
25 June 2025
Adjective
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Deepfakes have been growing more sophisticated in recent years, in addition to being increasingly deployed for malicious purposes.—
Shannon Bond,
NPR,
10 July 2025
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The best way to safeguard yourself from malicious links that install malware, potentially accessing your private information, is to have antivirus software installed on all your devices.—
Kurt Knutsson,
FOXNews.com,
10 July 2025
Adjective
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States loan the money to cities and towns at low interest rates, enabling communities to spread out the cost of critical government services people take for granted, such as replacing leaky street mains, maintaining treatment plants and rehabbing water towers.—
Michael Hawthorne,
Chicago Tribune,
6 July 2025
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Several other critical alerts followed, warning of the imminent threat: A flash flood emergency warning was issued for Kerr County at 4:03 a.m., followed by one for Kerrville at 5:34 a.m.—
Andrew Freedman,
CNN Money,
6 July 2025
Adjective
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Remember, too, that placing the plastic ID tags that come with your plant near its base isn’t a great solution; they get lost and break easily, and the degrading plastic isn’t good for the health of your soil.—
Mike Irvine,
Better Homes & Gardens,
22 June 2025
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Utilities can ask similar questions about households with pool pumps or those that show signs of inefficient or degrading appliances.—
Abhay Gupta,
Forbes.com,
20 June 2025
Adjective
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A far cry from the mild-mannered Peter Parker in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films, Tully is an abusive, hot-headed, and greedy slime ball who leverages post-war desperation into a thriving criminal business.—
Josh Weiss,
Forbes.com,
2 July 2025
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Otero Cruz, from Women Against Abuse, said leaving an abusive relationship is the most dangerous time for survivors.—
Mary Kekatos,
ABC News,
1 July 2025
Adjective
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Trump tried to claim that media reports about his administration’s early conclusions were somehow demeaning attacks on the performance of our military.—
Chris Brennan,
USA Today,
27 June 2025
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Loss of community trust Trans and nonbinary people have often been studied under opportunistic and demeaning circumstances.—
Paz Galupo,
The Conversation,
2 June 2025
Adjective
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By contrast, there’s something almost nakedly contemptuous about the end of this season.—
Kathryn VanArendonk,
Vulture,
30 May 2025
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That’s fine by an administration that seems basically contemptuous of the very concept of due process.—
New York Daily News Editorial Board,
New York Daily News,
31 May 2025
Adjective
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That post used a derogatory term that historically originated as an insult against Chinese people but is often used more generally toward East Asians.—
Doha Madani,
NBC news,
10 July 2025
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More: Officials rename 28 places in Wisconsin that had names derogatory to Indigenous women.—
Frank Vaisvilas,
jsonline.com,
9 July 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Denigrative.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/denigrative. Accessed 15 Jul. 2025.
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