deride, v.
(dɪˈraɪd)
[ad. L. dērīdē-re to laugh to scorn, scoff at, f. de- I. 4 + L. rīdēre to laugh. Cf. OF. derire and rare derider (Godef.).]
1. trans. To laugh at in contempt or scorn; to laugh to scorn: to make sport of, mock.
| 1530 [see deriding below]. 1545 Joye Exp. Dan. iii. 44 In al tymes haue the tyrants derided the godly while they paciently waited for Gods helpe. 1581 G. Pettie Guazzo's Civ. Conv. i. (1586) 30 b, Mockers and flouters, who..deride everie man. 1611 Bible Luke xxiii. 35 And the rulers also..derided him. 1621 Burton Anat. Mel. iii. iv. i. i. (1652) 633, I knowe not whether they are more to be pitied or derided. 1667 Milton P.L. xi. 817 Of them derided, but of God observ'd The one just Man alive. 1763 J. Brown Poetry & Mus. v. 75 A Bagpipe (an Instrument which an Englishman derides). 1781 Gibbon Decl. & F. II. xxviii. 99 He justly derides the absurd reverence for antiquity. 1853 J. H. Newman Hist. Sk. (1873) II. ii. vii. 272 Doctrines which, as an orator, he does not scruple to deride. |
† 2. intr. To laugh contemptuously or scornfully.
| 1619 H. Hutton Follies Anat. (Percy Soc.) 43 The hang⁓man..Began to scoffe, and thus deriding said. 1663 Wood Life (Oxf. Hist. Soc.) I. 466 A club..where many pretended witts would meet and deride at others. 1675 Traherne Chr. Ethics App. 562 When they deride at our profession. |
Hence deˈrided ppl. a., deˈriding vbl. n. and ppl. a.; deˈrider, one who derides, a mocker; deˈridingly adv., in a deriding way, with derision.
| 1530 Palsgr. 213/2 Deridyng, laughyng to skorne, derision. 1543 Necess. Doctr. H iij, A dissembler or rather a deryder of penance. 1563–87 Foxe A. & M. (1596) 635 (R.) In the same epistle [he] deridinglie commendeth them. 1594 Hooker Eccl. Pol. iv. i. §1 Prophane and deriding adversaries. 1672 Life & Death J. Alleine vi. (1837) 71 Deriding and menacing language. 1680–90 Temple Ess. Heroic Virtue Wks. 1731 I. 221 Their decayed and derided Idolatry. 1695 Woodward Nat. Hist. Earth ii. (1723) 116 His indiscreet..Derideing..of his Father. 1792 F. Burney Diary Jan., ‘What do you mean by going home?’ cried she, somewhat deridingly. 1845 Ld. Campbell Chancellors (1857) IV. lxxiv. 8 He deridingly called the swan on his badge, ‘a goose’. 1857 Hughes Tom Brown i. iii. (1871) 63 [He] smote his young derider on the nose. |