SUPERCILIOUS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does supercilious mean? 

• SUPERCILIOUS (adjective)
  The adjective SUPERCILIOUS has 2 senses:

1. having or showing arrogant superiority to and disdain of those one views as unworthy

2. expressive of contempt

  Familiarity information: SUPERCILIOUS used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SUPERCILIOUS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Having or showing arrogant superiority to and disdain of those one views as unworthy

Synonyms:

disdainful; haughty; imperious; lordly; overbearing; prideful; sniffy; supercilious; swaggering

Context example:

a more swaggering mood than usual

Similar:

proud (feeling self-respect or pleasure in something by which you measure your self-worth; or being a reason for pride)

Derivation:

superciliousness (the trait of displaying arrogance by patronizing those considered inferior)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Expressive of contempt

Synonyms:

sneering; snide; supercilious

Context example:

makes many a sharp comparison but never a mean or snide one

Similar:

uncomplimentary (tending to (or intended to) detract or disparage)

Derivation:

superciliousness (the trait of displaying arrogance by patronizing those considered inferior)

 Context examples 

He sat slowly down, blew out his chest, passed his hand caressingly down his beard, and looked with drooping eyelids and supercilious eyes at the crowded hall before him.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

For, though elated by his rank, it did not render him supercilious; on the contrary, he was all attention to everybody.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Something of my uncle’s sneer may have flickered upon my lips as I heard him allude with supercilious surprise to the presence in those sacrosanct circles of the men who had stood between the country and destruction.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Blanche Ingram, after having repelled, by supercilious taciturnity, some efforts of Mrs. Dent and Mrs. Eshton to draw her into conversation, had first murmured over some sentimental tunes and airs on the piano, and then, having fetched a novel from the library, had flung herself in haughty listlessness on a sofa, and prepared to beguile, by the spell of fiction, the tedious hours of absence.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

He had swung round his revolving chair so as to face me, and he sat all puffed out like an enormous bull-frog, his head laid back and his eyes half-covered by supercilious lids.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Picture him seated upon a rock, his absurd boyish straw hat tilted on the back of his head, his supercilious eyes dominating us from under his drooping lids, his great black beard wagging as he slowly defined our present situation and our future movements.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Like a dado round the room was the jutting line of splendid heavy game-heads, the best of their sort from every quarter of the world, with the rare white rhinoceros of the Lado Enclave drooping its supercilious lip above them all.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Now he was a sturdy, straw haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

I think he'd tanked up a good deal at luncheon and his determination to have my company bordered on violence. The supercilious assumption was that on Sunday afternoon I had nothing better to do.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)