derogatory

derogatory, depreciatory, depreciative, disparaging, slighting, pejorative mean designed or tending to belittle.

Derogatory may be used of one's own action or activity that tends to detract from his reputation or to lower him in the estimation of others

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though it was supposed to be proper for them to have an occupation, the crude fact of money- making was still regarded as derogatory— Wharton

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will grub in a garden all day, or wash dogs or rid them of vermin . . . without considering the dirt involved in these jobs in the least derogatory to their dignity— Shaw

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More often the term is applied to expressions or modes of expression (as choice of words or tone of voice) and then implies an intent to detract or belittle by suggesting something that is discreditable

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the derogatory use of the term politician

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he makes remarks about miracles, quite derogatory remarks— H. G. Wells

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there is no one so situated that he cannot refrain from telling race jokes and using derogatory names— Lillian Smith

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Depreciatory and depreciative are used chiefly of something written or spoken that tends to lower a thing in value or in status

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a depreciatory comparison of man's mortal nature with the persistence of cosmic phenomena— Lowie

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They often also describe words or modes of using words that bear connotations tending to discredit or to bring into discredit the person or thing referred to

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what people might refer to, slightingly, as being mere subjective feelings . . . have more significance than that depreciatory way of speaking about them— Hendel

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in the classic world of antiquity they called outsiders . . . "barbarians"—a denomination which took on an increasingly depreciative sense— Ellis

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Disparaging definitely implies an intent to depreciate usually by the use of oblique and indirect methods. The term suggests an attempt to make little of or to discourage by belittling and often carries a clearer implication of intentional detraction than derogatory and of resulting undervaluing than depreciatory or depreciative

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a disparaging review of a book

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criticism is in many cases just a calling of laudatory or disparaging names— Huxley

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nothing can be further from the truth than to call the Greeks "intellectualists" in the disparaging sense in which the word is now often used— Inge

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Slighting applies to anything that may convey or imply a slight or indicate the little respect in which one is held by the speaker; it sometimes implies disparagement but, more often, indifference or disdain

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to hear yourself . . . glanced at in a few slighting terms— Ben Jonson

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a slighting allusion to his book

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the constable felt the full effect of this slighting reception— Scott

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her chief complaint is my slighting reference to Henry James— J. D. Adams

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Pejorative is nearly equal to depreciatory or depreciative in meaning

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it might be argued, without any pejorative implication, whether Gide's is essentially a religious temperament or whether ... he has found in the traditions and doctrines of Christianity ... an adequate and sympathetic psychology— Farrelly

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the Grand Jury ... is here put in a pejorative light— Stein

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It is used especially in reference to words which have acquired a later and baser meaning or to derogatory words formed from another word or root by the addition of a suffix or prefix that gives them a derogatory twist

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the earlier meaning of "imp"—a child—has now given way to its pejorative meaning of a mischievous child, or rogue

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it was drifting, all right, but not drifting in any nasty pejorative sense, like ... a cake of soap in the gray water before you pull the plug in the bathtub— Warren

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euphemism ... is the motive force behind many pejorative developments. If a euphemistic substitute ceases to be felt as such . . . this will result in a permanent depreciation of its meaning— Ullmann

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resort to pejorative epithets as their argument— Cohen

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poetaster is the pejorative word for poet

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pseudo- is often used in English with pejorative force

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Analogous words: belittling, minimizing, decrying (see DECRY): aspersing, maligning (see MALIGN)