vilipendency

English

Noun

vilipendency (uncountable)

1. (formal) disesteem; slight; disparagement
   • 1653, Edward Waterhouse, A humble Apologie for Learning and Learned Men, page 149:

     The mighty Goliaths of Rome, by this way of vilipendency hope to give our clergy's flesh to be food for the fowls of the air.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “vilipendency”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)