Condescend vs Behind - What's the difference?
condescend | behind |
(lb) To come down from one's superior position; to deign (to do something).
*1665 , (John Dryden), (The Indian Emperour) , act 1, sc.2:
*:Spain's mighty monarch/ In gracious clemency, does condescend / On these conditions, to become your friend.
*1847 , (Anne Bronte),
*:Fanny and little Harriet he seldom condescended to notice; but Mary Ann was something of a favourite.
(lb) To treat (someone) as though inferior; to be patronizing (toward someone); to talk down (to someone).
*1861 , (Charles Dickens), (Great Expectations) , Ch.29:
*:"You must know," said Estella, condescending to me as a brilliant and beautiful woman might, "that I have no heart."
*1880 , ,
*:Ermine never let any one be condescending to her, and conducted the conversation with her usual graceful good breeding.
*
*:At her invitation he outlined for her the succeeding chapters with terse military accuracy?; and what she liked best and best understood was avoidance of that false modesty which condescends , turning technicality into pabulum.
To consent, agree.
*1671 , (John Milton), (Samson Agonistes) , lines 1134-36:
*:Can they think me so broken, so debased / With corporal servitude, that my mind ever / Will condescend to such absurd commands?
*1868 , (Horatio Alger),
*:"This is the pay I get for condescending to let you go with me."
To come down.
At the back of.
*
*:But then I had the [massive] flintlock by me for protection. ¶, and a 'bead' could be drawn upon Molly, the dairymaid, kissing the fogger behind the hedge, little dreaming that the deadly tube was levelled at them.
*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-19, author=(Timothy Garton Ash)
, volume=189, issue=6, page=18, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly)
, title= To the back of.
After, time- or motion-wise.
*1883 , (Robert Louis Stevenson), (Treasure Island)
*:About the center, and a good way behind the rest, Silver and I followed - I tethered by my rope.
Responsible for.
In support of.
:
Left a distance by, in progress or improvement; inferior to.
:
*Bible, xi.5:
*:I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.
At the back part; in the rear.
* Milton
Toward the back part or rear; backward.
Overdue, in arrears.
Slow; of a watch or clock.
existing afterwards
* Shakespeare
Backward in time or order of succession; past.
* Bible, Phil. ii. 13
Behind the scenes in a theatre; backstage.
* 1890 , (Oscar Wilde), The Picture of Dorian Gray , Vintage 2007, p. 68:
(archaic) Not yet brought forward, produced, or exhibited to view; out of sight; remaining.
* John Locke
the rear, back-end
butt, the buttocks, bottom
(Australian rules football) A one-point score.
* 1880 . "The Opening Ball" in Comic Australian Verse'', ed. G. Lehmann, 1975. Quoted in G. A. Wilkes, ''A Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms , second edition, 1985, (Sydney University Press), ISBN 0-424-00113-6.
The catcher.
In the Eton College field game, any of a group of players consisting of two "shorts" (who try to kick the ball over the bully) and a "long" (who defends the goal).
As a verb condescend
is (lb) to come down from one's superior position; to deign (to do something).As a preposition behind is
at the back of.As an adverb behind is
at the back part; in the rear.As a noun behind is
the rear, back-end.condescend
English
Verb
(en verb)Agnes Grey, Ch.5:
Clever Woman of the Family, Ch.7:
Struggling Upward, Ch.3:
Usage notes
* This is a catenative verb that takes the to infinitive . See * In sense “to talk down”, the derived participial adjective condescending (and corresponding adverb condescendingly) are more common than the verb itself.Synonyms
* (come down from superior position) acquiesce, deign, stoop, vouchsafe * patronize, put on airs * (consent) yield * (come down) descendExternal links
* *behind
English
Preposition
(English prepositions)Where Dr Pangloss meets Machiavelli, passage=Hidden behind thickets of acronyms and gorse bushes of detail, a new great game is under way across the globe. Some call it geoeconomics, but it's geopolitics too. The current power play consists of an extraordinary range of countries simultaneously sitting down to negotiate big free trade and investment agreements.}}
Synonyms
* in back of * to the rear ofAdverb
(en adverb)- I shall not lag behind .
- to look behind
- My employer is two paychecks behind on paying my salary.
- I'm two weeks behind in my schedule.
- ''My watch is four minutes behind .
- He left behind a legacy of death and sorrow.
- He stayed behind after the war.
- Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, / And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, / Leave not a rack behind .
- forgetting those things which are behind
- ‘After the performance was over I went behind , and spoke to her.’
- We cannot be sure that there is no evidence behind .
Usage notes
For usage in phrasal verbs, see Category: English phrasal verbs with particle "behind": .Noun
(en noun)- A roar from ten thousand throats go up,
For we've kicked another behind.