How to Use disdainful in a Sentence

disdainful

adjective
  • He looked at the waiter with a disdainful glare.
  • My mother whips her head around and casts me a disdainful look.
    — Yuxi Lin, Longreads, 25 Mar. 2019
  • My mother whips her head around and casts me a disdainful look.
    — Yuxi Lin, Longreads, 16 June 2022
  • Alfaro is going to strike out a ton and is disdainful of walks.
    — Peter Abraham, BostonGlobe.com, 21 Jan. 2023
  • The Germans were pragmatic, and the British were measured, and the French were disdainful.
    — Fox News, 3 June 2018
  • The mask-less people at Kroger wore one of two looks: Sheepish or disdainful.
    — Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati.com, 19 Apr. 2020
  • At the next table, a couple, their arms cross, cast disdainful looks.
    — Brienne Walsh, Forbes, 27 Oct. 2021
  • Greer’s disdainful, stuck-up lines ooze out of Kidman’s mouth.
    — Vinson Cunningham, The New Yorker, 25 Sep. 2024
  • From above, the figurines almost appear to be grinning, but the face looks disdainful when viewed head-on.
    — Mack Degeurin, Popular Science, 6 Mar. 2025
  • His disdainful critique emphasized how Biden, just like Putin, cannot afford to lose the test of wills that will play out in the tense days to come.
    — Stephen Collinson, CNN, 21 Jan. 2022
  • Rumor has it that Lily, a somewhat older Coton de Tulear, is a touch disdainful of the new monarch.
    — Doug MacCash, NOLA.com, 22 Jan. 2018
  • His second just before the gong was preceded by a disdainful hand off in the face of Wales' scrumhalf Tomos Williams.
    — Daniel Gallan, CNN, 1 Nov. 2019
  • Another part of me feels it’s unfair to treat those who are loving toward me the same as those who are disdainful of me.
    — Washington Post, 9 Feb. 2022
  • The kinds of Americans who have been on the receiving end of the president’s most harsh, disdainful rhetoric.
    — Jamelle Bouie, Slate Magazine, 25 Sep. 2017
  • These men also tend to be lonely and disdainful of others.
    — Kate Stone Lombardi, Good Housekeeping, 30 Apr. 2019
  • Stewart was a student of Yousuf Karsh, best known for his portrait of an disdainful Winston Churchill.
    — Trevor Fraser, orlandosentinel.com, 10 June 2019
  • Another is that, in his quest to govern from on high, Mr Macron tends to come across as disdainful, and out of touch with ordinary folk.
    — The Economist, 14 Apr. 2018
  • Lingering at the edge of the group was Suzie, a petite woman with wild, white-blond hair as well as the spry yet disdainful affect of an inner-city nun.
    — Kent Russell, Harper's Magazine, 28 Feb. 2025
  • The man who was often disdainful and condescending to the media even briefly hosted his own TV talk show.
    — Scott Ostler, San Francisco Chronicle, 12 Feb. 2023
  • Supremely self-confident and disdainful of all borders, the pair are the perfect guardians for a show in which Sikander blows open the form of miniature painting.
    — Molly Crabapple, The New York Review of Books, 8 July 2021
  • His tone is disdainful toward women, or at least toward women who dare to ask why women still don’t hold the priesthood in the LDS Church.
    — The Salt Lake Tribune, 16 Feb. 2022
  • Is there any living actor better at the disdainful eye roll than Michelle Pfeiffer?
    — Lindsey Bahr, Star Tribune, 30 Mar. 2021
  • The Falcons were equally disdainful of Ridder with Monday night’s game plan.
    — Vic Tafur, The Athletic, 17 Dec. 2024
  • The Falcons were equally disdainful of Ridder with Monday night’s game plan.
    — Vic Tafur, The Athletic, 17 Dec. 2024
  • Still, Gorsuch’s lack of a mask inside the courtroom seemed needlessly risky and disdainful of his colleagues.
    — New York Times, 14 Jan. 2022
  • That doesn’t mean Katz is disdainful of the live theater experience.
    — Jessica Gelt, latimes.com, 9 July 2018
  • This is what sets The End of Eddy apart; the novel’s tone is both intimate and removed, even disdainful, toward its subjects.
    — Samuel Metz, New Republic, 8 June 2017
  • Kavanaugh, at least in his public writings, is disdainful of an activist court.
    — Colby Itkowitz, Washington Post, 11 July 2018
  • The hard pass is especially effective when paired with a refusal to look up from your phone or a disdainful loogie hock.
    — Evan Waite, The New Yorker, 10 Apr. 2024
  • Such talk likely would have scandalized Mugabe, who was openly disdainful of the drug.
    — Washington Post, 6 May 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'disdainful.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: