[ad. L. contemptibilitās, f. contemptibil-is: see -ITY.]

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  1.  The quality or fact of being contemptible; contemptibleness; an instance of this.

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1611.  Speed, Hist. Gt. Brit., IX. xi. (1632), 668. The contemptibility and vanity of this effeminate argument.

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1793.  Burns, Lett. to G. Thomson, July. The old ballad … is silly, to contemptibility.

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1818.  Coleridge, in Rem. (1836), I. 140. In the voyages to Lilliput and Brobdingnag he displays the littleness and moral contemptibility of human nature.

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1873.  Masson, Drumm. of Hawth., vii. 138. How full of … degradations, shames, contemptibilities, and meannesses.

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  † 2.  Contemptuousness. Obs.

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1794.  J. Williams (A. Pasquin), Cab. Misc., Ded. 7. The contemptibility and malignancy of the Reviewers can do but a small injury to any author of merit.

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