DISTRUST

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does distrust mean? 

• DISTRUST (noun)
  The noun DISTRUST has 2 senses:

1. doubt about someone's honesty

2. the trait of not trusting others

  Familiarity information: DISTRUST used as a noun is rare.

• DISTRUST (verb)
  The verb DISTRUST has 1 sense:

1. regard as untrustworthy; regard with suspicion; have no faith or confidence in

  Familiarity information: DISTRUST used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DISTRUST (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Doubt about someone's honesty

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

distrust; misgiving; mistrust; suspicion

Hypernyms ("distrust" is a kind of...):

doubt; doubtfulness; dubiety; dubiousness; incertitude; uncertainty (the state of being unsure of something)

Derivation:

distrust (regard as untrustworthy; regard with suspicion; have no faith or confidence in)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The trait of not trusting others

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

distrust; distrustfulness; mistrust

Hypernyms ("distrust" is a kind of...):

trait (a distinguishing feature of your personal nature)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "distrust"):

suspicion; suspiciousness (being of a suspicious nature)

Antonym:

trust (the trait of believing in the honesty and reliability of others)

Derivation:

distrust (regard as untrustworthy; regard with suspicion; have no faith or confidence in)

• DISTRUST (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they distrust    ... he / she / it distrusts   
Past simple: distrusted   
Past participle: distrusted   
-ing form: distrusting   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Regard as untrustworthy; regard with suspicion; have no faith or confidence in

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Synonyms:

distrust; mistrust; suspect

Hypernyms (to "distrust" is one way to...):

disbelieve; discredit (reject as false; refuse to accept)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "distrust"):

doubt (lack confidence in or have doubts about)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

Sentence example:

They want to distrust the prisoners

Antonym:

trust (have confidence or faith in)

Derivation:

distrust (the trait of not trusting others)

distrust (doubt about someone's honesty)

 Context examples 

Distrust, the very feeling I dreaded, appeared in Hannah's face.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Where the real sex feeling begins, timidity and distrust are its companions, heritage from old wicked days when love and violence went often hand in hand.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The cub's fear of the unknown was an inherited distrust, and it had now been strengthened by experience.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

She distrusted the past, if not the present.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

I believe I had at this time some lurking distrust of Steerforth.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

“You swear,” I said, to be harmless; but have you not already shown a degree of malice that should reasonably make me distrust you?

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Like me, Marie viewed with deep distrust the stranger who had driven her mistress from Lausanne.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A mental disorder in which a person has an extreme fear and distrust of others.

(Paranoia, NCI Dictionary)

Doubt and distrust showed strongly in his face.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

But it was not distrust that prevented him from submitting the "Lyrics."

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)