What does contemner mean?
A contemner is a person who contemns — that is, one who regards someone or something with scorn, disdain, or deliberate disrespect. The word is the agent noun corresponding to the verb 'to contemn', itself the source of the far more common 'contempt'. While 'contempt' describes the emotion or legal state, 'contemner' identifies the individual who holds and expresses it. The term is formal, somewhat literary, and comparatively rare in modern conversation, though it survives in legal usage to describe parties guilty of contempt of court, and in older or elevated prose to characterize rebels against convention, critics of religion, or flouters of social norms. A contemner of tradition, for instance, is not merely indifferent to it but actively holds it cheap. Related terms include 'despiser', 'scorner', and 'disdainer', all of which are more familiar alternatives carrying similar force.
nounA person who contemns someone or something; one who treats a person, institution, or value with scorn, disdain, or open disrespect.
- One who despises, scorns, or treats with disdain a person, institution, custom, or value.
- (Legal contexts) A party guilty of contempt of court or of another authority's lawful process.
"He remained an unrepentant contemner of courtly etiquette, mocking every ritual the old regime held dear."
"An avowed contemner of fashion, she wore whatever she pleased and laughed at those who did otherwise."
"The tribunal branded him a serial contemner of its rulings, fining him for each act of defiance."
Standard pluralization by adding -s.
"History remembers the great contemners of orthodoxy as heretics or as visionaries, rarely as both at once."
'Contemner' is the noun hiding behind the more familiar word 'contempt' — it names not the feeling of scorn, but the person who feels and shows it.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of contemner
The word derives from Latin 'contemnere', meaning to despise or slight, formed from the prefix 'con-' plus 'temnere', to cut off or hold cheap, a root shared with the Latin-derived 'temerity'. It entered English through Old French alongside the verb 'contemn' in the late Middle Ages or early modern period, giving rise to the agent-noun form 'contemner'. Its most prominent surviving relatives are 'contempt', 'contemptible', and 'contemptuous', which come from the past participle stem of the same Latin verb.
How contemner is actually used
Formal and somewhat literary in tone; rare in everyday speech but still encountered in legal writing about contempt of court and in older polemical prose.
Easily confused with contemner
A contender competes for something, while a contemner scorns or despises it.