spurn

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   To reject disdainfully

   To reject disdainfully; contemn; scorn.

   • to spurn at your most royal image
   • What safe and nicely I might well delay By rule of knighthood, I disdain and spurn.
   • Domestics will pay a more ready and cheerful service, when they find themselves not spurned, because fortune has laid them below the level of others, at their master's feet.
2. 2

   To reject something by pushing it away with the foot.

   • Me thinks I ſee kings kneeling at his feet, And he with frowning browes and fiery lookes, Spurning their crownes from off their captiue heads.
   • I spurn thee like a cur out of my way.
3. 3

   To waste

   To waste; fail to make the most of (an opportunity)

   • Marouane Chamakh then spurned a great chance to kill the game off when he ran onto Andrey Arshavin's lofted through ball but shanked his shot horribly across the face of goal.
4. ›+ 5 more definitionsshow fewer

   1. 4

      To kick or toss up the heels.

      • oft' the ſudden Gale Ruffles the Tide, and ſhifts the dang'rous Sail, […] The drunken Chairman in the Kennel ſpurns, The Glaſſes ſhatters, and his Charge o'erturns.
   2. 5

      An act of spurning

      An act of spurning; a scornful rejection.

   3. 6

      A kick

      A kick; a blow with the foot.

      • What defence can properly be used in such a despicable encounter as this but either the slap or the spurn?
   4. 7

      Disdainful rejection

      Disdainful rejection; contemptuous treatment.

      • The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes.
   5. 8

      A body of coal left to sustain an overhanging mass.

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