- scoff
- scoff, jeer, gibe, fleer, gird, sneer, flout can all mean to show one's scorn or contempt in derision or mockery.Scoff stresses insolence, irreverence, lack of respect, or incredulity as the motives for one's derision or mockery{
it is an easy thing to scoff at any art or recreation; a little wit mixed with ill nature, confidence, and malice, will do it— Walton
}{fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray— Goldsmith
}{in jesting mood his comrades heard his tale, and scoffed at it— Lowell
}Jeer carries a stronger implication of loud derisive laughter than scoff; it usually connotes a coarser and more vulgar or, at least, a less keenly critical attitude than scoff{how does it come that men . . . walk in its streets and jeer and speak their hate— Keesing
}Unsuccessful experiments had been jeered down with an I-told-you-so that rang from coast to coast— Dos Passos){inclined to jeer at those slightly older than himself who show any tendency to abandon the —to him—rational preoccupations of childhood— Krutch
}Gibe stresses taunting, often in derisive sarcasm, sometimes in good-natured raillery{you . . . with taunts did gibe my missive out of audience— Shak.
}{after one of her visitations you gibed each other good-naturedly over the extent to which you found yourself shifted from the firm ground of reasoned conclusion— Mary Austin
}{generosity of spirit which had prevented him from gibing at individuals for characteristics beyond their control— Gwethalyn Graham
}Fleer throws the emphasis upon derisive grins, grimaces, and laughs rather than on utterances{look like two old maids of honor got into a circle of fleering girls and boys— Gray
}{he listened with a fleering mouth to his father's long dogmatic grace before meat— Hergesheimer
}Gird implies an attack marked by scoffing, gibing, or jeering{the subprior was bidden to sing ... the "Elegy of the Rose"; the author girding cheerily at the clerkly man's assumed ignorance of such compositions— Pater
}{it worked off steam and got its comedy largely by girding at the great ones of the past— Times Lit. Sup.
}Sneer carries the strongest implication of cynicism and ill-natured contempt of any of these terms; it often suggests the use of irony or satire the real purport of which is indicated by an insultingly contemptu-ous facial expression, tone of voice, or manner of phrasing{it has become . . . fashionable to sneer at economics and emphasize "the human dilemma"— Mailer
}{people are nowadays so cynical—they sneer at everything that makes life worth living— L. P. Smith
}Flout may imply any of the actions suggested by the preceding terms, but it carries a heightened implication not only of disdain and contempt but of refusal to heed or of a denial of a thing's truth or power{that bids him flout the law he makes, that bids him make the law he flouts— Kipling
}{no form of Christianity which flouts science is in the true line of progress— Inge
}{for the past eight years they had watched an administration purposely flout the intellectual life— Michener
}
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
