Blame vs Scorn - What's the difference?

As nouns the difference between blame and scorn

is that blame is censure while scorn is contempt or disdain.

As verbs the difference between blame and scorn

is that blame is to censure (someone or something); to criticize while scorn is to feel or display contempt or disdain for something or somebody; to despise.

blame

English

Etymology 1

(etyl), from (etyl)

Noun

(-)

Censure.

Blame came from all directions.

Culpability for something negative or undesirable.

The blame for starting the fire lies with the arsonist.

Responsibility for something meriting censure.

They accepted the blame , but it was an accident.

Derived terms

* put the blame on

Etymology 2

(etyl), from (etyl) blasmer, from . Compare (blaspheme)

Verb

(blam)

To censure (someone or something); to criticize.

* 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , III.ii:

though my loue be not so lewdly bent, / As those ye blame , yet may it nought appease / My raging smart [...].

These peculiarities of Dorothea's character caused Mr. Brooke to be all the more blamed in neighboring families for not securing some middle-aged lady as guide and companion to his nieces.

* 1919 , (Saki), ‘The Oversight’, The Toys of Peace :

That was the year that Sir Richard was writing his volume on Domestic Life in Tartary . The critics all blamed it for a lack of concentration.

* 2006 , Clive James, North Face of Soho , Picador 2007, p. 106:

I covered the serious programmes too, and indeed, right from the start, I spent more time praising than blaming .

(obsolete) To bring into disrepute.

* 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , II.viii:

For knighthoods loue, do not so foule a deed, / Ne blame your honour with so shamefull vaunt / Of vile reuenge.

To assert or consider that someone is the cause of something negative; to place blame, to attribute responsibility (for something negative or for doing something negative).

The arsonist was blamed for the fire.

Synonyms

* reproach, take to task, upbraid * (consider that someone is the cause of something negative) hold to account

Derived terms

* blamer

Anagrams

* English reporting verbs

scorn

English

Verb

(en verb)

To feel or display contempt or disdain for something or somebody; to despise.

* C. J. Smith

We scorn what is in itself contemptible or disgraceful.

To scoff, express contempt.

To reject, turn down

He scorned her romantic advances.

To refuse to do something, as beneath oneself.

She scorned to show weakness.

Synonyms

* See also

Noun

(uncountable) Contempt or disdain.

(countable) A display of disdain; a slight.

* Dryden

Every sullen frown and bitter scorn / But fanned the fuel that too fast did burn.

(countable) An object of disdain, contempt, or derision.

* Bible, Psalms xliv. 13

Thou makest us a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and a derision to them that are round about us.

Usage notes

* Scorn'' is often used in the phrases ''pour scorn on'' and ''heap scorn on .

Quotations

* circa 1605': The cry is still 'They come': our castle's strength / Will laugh a siege to '''scorn — '' * 1967', Rain of tears, real, mist of imagined '''scorn — John Berryman, ''Berryman's Sonnets . New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux.