OPPROBRIUM

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does opprobrium mean? 

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

1. state of disgrace resulting from public abuse

2. a state of extreme dishonor

  Familiarity information: OPPROBRIUM used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• OPPROBRIUM (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

State of disgrace resulting from public abuse

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

obloquy; opprobrium

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

disgrace; ignominy; shame (a state of dishonor)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A state of extreme dishonor

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

infamy; opprobrium

Context example:

the name was a by-word of scorn and opprobrium throughout the city

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

dishonor; dishonour (a state of shame or disgrace)

Derivation:

opprobrious ((used of conduct or character) deserving or bringing disgrace or shame)

 Context examples 

My head still ached and bled with the blow and fall I had received: no one had reproved John for wantonly striking me; and because I had turned against him to avert farther irrational violence, I was loaded with general opprobrium.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Yet such must be the impression conveyed to you by what appears to be the purport of my actions. Yet I seek not a fellow feeling in my misery. No sympathy may I ever find. When I first sought it, it was the love of virtue, the feelings of happiness and affection with which my whole being overflowed, that I wished to be participated. But now that virtue has become to me a shadow, and that happiness and affection are turned into bitter and loathing despair, in what should I seek for sympathy? I am content to suffer alone while my sufferings shall endure; when I die, I am well satisfied that abhorrence and opprobrium should load my memory. Once my fancy was soothed with dreams of virtue, of fame, and of enjoyment. Once I falsely hoped to meet with beings who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding. I was nourished with high thoughts of honour and devotion. But now crime has degraded me beneath the meanest animal. No guilt, no mischief, no malignity, no misery, can be found comparable to mine. When I run over the frightful catalogue of my sins, I cannot believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts were once filled with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of goodness. But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)