a. Also 7 -tious. [f. L. contemptu-s CONTEMPT + -OUS. (There may have been a mod.L. *contemptuōsus.)]
1. Showing contempt (said of persons, their conduct and acts); full of contempt; disdainful, scornful, insolent.
1595. Shaks., John, II. i. 384. The flintie ribbes of this contemptuous Citie.
1667. Milton, P. L., IV. 885. Satan with contemptuous brow.
1692. W. Lowth, Vind. Insp. O. & N. Test. (1699), C iij a. Resolved in a Contemptious manner to shut their Eyes against the … Light.
1793. Beddoes, Math. Evid., 123. Mr. Heyne speaks in the most contemptuous terms of [it].
1859. Geo. Eliot, A. Bede, 9. An air of contemptuous indifference.
1879. E. Garrett, House by Works, II. 19. Sometimes she was hard and cold and contemptuous.
b. Const. of.
1865. Mill, Exam. Hamilton, 248. We know how contemptuous he is of Brown.
1874. Green, Short Hist., iii. § 5. 140. Men … contemptuous of the principles of English government.
† 2. Setting legal authority at defiance; contemning law and public order. Obs.
1529. [see CONTEMPTUOUSLY b].
1547. Proclam., in Strype, Eccl. Mem., II. App. C. 20. In the execution of justice and punishment of al such contemptuous offenders.
1593. Rites & Mon. Ch. Durh. (Surtees), 24. Defaced by some lewde and contemptuous wicked persons.
1681. Lond. Gaz., No. 1657/3. Your Declaration, dated the eighth of April last; which very observably allayed the contemptuous contagion that began to reinfect the credulous and unstable.
† 3. Exciting or worthy of contempt; contemptible, despicable. Obs.
1549. Chaloner, Erasm. on Folly, K iv a. A kynde of men most miserable, most slavelike, and most contemptuous.
1593. Shaks., 2 Hen. VI., I. iii. 86. Contemptuous base borne Callot as she is.
1650. Baxter, Saints’ R., III. xiii. (1662), 528. Cast them off as contemptuous Swine.
1796. Mrs. E. Parsons, Myst. Warning, III. 169. Fragments like these were to him contemptuous ruins.
