Condescend vs Cower - What's the difference?
condescend | cower | Related terms |
(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.
To crouch or cringe, or to avoid or shy away from something, in fear.
* Dryden
* Goldsmith
Condescend is a related term of cower.
As verbs the difference between condescend and cower
is that condescend is (lb) to come down from one's superior position; to deign (to do something) while cower is to crouch or cringe, or to avoid or shy away from something, in fear or cower can be (obsolete|transitive) to cherish with care.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
* *cower
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) kuren or from Scandinavian ((etyl) . Unrelated to coward, which is of Latin origin.Verb
(en verb)- He'd be useless in war. He'd just cower in his bunker until the enemy came in and shot him, or until the war was over.
- Our dame sits cowering o'er a kitchen fire.
- Like falcons, cowering on the nest.