Despire

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Archaic term meaning to regard someone or something with scorn and look down upon it
2. An obsolete verb for viewing a person or thing as contemptible and beneath notice
3. Old-fashioned way of expressing deep disdain or contempt toward another being or object

Etymology: Its literal meaning is physical: Latin "despicere" combined "de-" (down) with "specere" (to look), so it meant "to look down" at something, whether from a height or with contempt. English took the idea through French, and from the same Latin verb came two forms that went separate ways. One, "despise", became the everyday word and kept the contemptuous sense. The other, "despire", arrived earlier through Old French and survived in English writing for a time before dying out, so the pair is a doublet, two descendants of one Latin source. "Despire" meant to despise, to regard with scorn, or to look down on someone as beneath notice. It was never common, and it is now obsolete, though it still turns up in older literature and in dictionaries of archaic English. "Despicable" is a later relative from the same Latin root, reshaped in English after the stem had already split into these forms.