pejorative language - Single word that means "to look down on others"?


What is a single word in English which means to look down on others (due to their younger age, lower socio-economic position, lesser experience, etc)


Not look down upon everyone else in general, but look down upon some particular person due to a feeling of superiority of oneself over them ( this superiority may come from the fact that one feels has more money, talent, etc)?


By "look down upon" I don't mean just the feeling of having superiority over another, but acting to them in a manner that reflects this pride as well (for example, perhaps he acts very rudely to them, since he feels superior to them and feels he can get away with it, or he feels it doesn't matter at all due to his superiority)



Answer



You can consider condescend (to sb). If you condescend to somebody, you show feelings of superiority and you can even be patronizing toward that person. So, you actually show it in your actions and this can be called a condescending behavior.



to treat someone as if you are more important or more intelligent than them


http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/condescend-to-sb



Further details from vocabulary.com:



If you are being condescending, you are looking down on someone. A 10-year-old who says to his sibling, "What do you know? You're only a 6-year-old!" is being condescending.


The Latin prefix con- means "with," and the Latin word for descend means "down," so the word condescending probably developed to describe someone who looked down on others. Condescending behavior is, not surprisingly, itself looked down upon. It's usually intended to make people feel bad about not knowing or having something, and it very often works.



Note: There is the pejorative term condescending prick also.



Related:
What does 'condescending' exactly mean?


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