Contempt

Contempt is a secondary emotion (not among the original six emotions) and is a mix of the primary emotions disgust and anger. The word originated in 1393, from the Latin word contemptus meaning "scorn." It is the past participle of contemnere and from com- intens. prefix + temnere "to slight, scorn." The origin is uncertain. Contemptuous appeared in 1529.

Robert C. Solomon places contempt on the same continuum as resentment and anger, and he argues that the differences between the three is that resentment is directed toward a higher status individual; anger is directed toward an equal status individual; and contempt is directed toward a lower status individual.

Read more about Contempt:  Cultural Context, Characteristics, Defining Features of Contempt, Response To Contempt

Famous quotes containing the word contempt:

    It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.
    —W.E.B. (William Edward Burghardt)

    What harm cause not those huge draughts or pictures which wanton youth with chalk or coals draw in each passage, wall or stairs of our great houses, whence a cruel contempt of our natural store is bred in them?
    Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)

    Statesmen and beauties are very rarely sensible of the gradations of their decay; and, too sanguinely hoping to shine on in their meridian, often set with contempt and ridicule.
    Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)