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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With all of the furor over the halftime show, perhaps no one noticed two highly insulting events that directly affected the deaf audience.—
Voice of the People,
New York Daily News,
13 Feb. 2026 -
The discontent was more widespread, more vociferous and more insulting this time.—
Andy Naylor,
New York Times,
9 Feb. 2026
Adjective
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Rodney Ward could face up to 25 years in prison for the charges of theft and malicious destruction of property.—
Caroline Foreback,
CBS News,
18 Feb. 2026
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Their poverty, the fruit of Salieri’s malicious ploys, tests the limits of their endurance.—
Theater Critic,
Los Angeles Times,
18 Feb. 2026
Adjective
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After decades of maintaining his innocence, Vedam’s conviction was thrown out by a judge in August after it was revealed that prosecutors had withheld potentially critical ballistics evidence during his two trials.—
Elizabeth Wolfe,
CNN Money,
17 Feb. 2026
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His final film earned universal critical acclaim, and was recognized as the best nonfiction film of 2023 by the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn.—
Kevin Crust,
Los Angeles Times,
17 Feb. 2026
Adjective
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Former detainees and human rights organizations have documented systematic torture and severe abuses inside the facility, including beatings, electric shocks, suspension by limbs, prolonged stress positions and other degrading treatment.—
Antonio María Delgado,
Miami Herald,
31 Jan. 2026
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Currently the funds spent by governments and the private sector on destroying biodiversty and degrading cosystems like forests and seagrasses are 30 times larger than the flows supporting conservation, restoration and protection of the natural world.—
Nick Nuttall,
Forbes.com,
28 Jan. 2026
Adjective
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When his father became abusive, his mother moved them to a hotel, and later an apartment, and raised Talarico in east Austin.—
Nicole Fallert,
USA Today,
17 Feb. 2026
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Related Stories Dunja, an unemployed teacher and single mom, is trying to reconstruct her life while coping with her abusive ex-husband Kemo, who’s in prison.—
Anna Marie de la Fuente,
Variety,
17 Feb. 2026
Adjective
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Never mind that the statuettes were meant to be demeaning.—
Judith Shulevitz,
The Atlantic,
17 Feb. 2026
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Sure, the demeaning bigotry cannot be ignored, and the post was just after armed federal agents burst into a hotel room to arrest the unarmed Black journalist Don Lemon, and the National Park Service removed a slavery exhibit in Philadelphia.—
Jeffrey Sonnenfeld,
Time,
7 Feb. 2026
Adjective
-
Hogg, who had a brief and tumultuous stint as a DNC co–vice chair in early 2025, is contemptuous of the party’s lingering cohort of elder leaders.—
Mark Leibovich,
The Atlantic,
11 Feb. 2026
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Written in a joking and contemptuous tone, the tweet would take on an indescribably morbid weight just five days later, when, at the behest of Governor Cláudio Castro, the Rio de Janeiro police carried out the deadliest massacre in the country’s history.—
Evandro Cruz Silva,
The Dial,
10 Feb. 2026
Adjective
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Court documents show Shadbar, who is white, yelled several derogatory racist and sexist slurs at his neighbors and had regularly harassed the family, including firing blank rounds toward Robertson’s home and throwing an M-80 type of firework over the fence into her yard.—
Michelle Mullins,
Chicago Tribune,
6 Feb. 2026
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Oklahoma State’s win over BYU was overshadowed by allegations of derogatory fan chants.—
Chantz Martin,
FOXNews.com,
5 Feb. 2026
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Cite this Entry
“Denigrative.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/denigrative. Accessed 22 Feb. 2026.
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