Condescend vs Unkind - What's the difference?
condescend | unkind |
(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.
(obsolete) Having no race or kindred; childless.
Not kind; contrary to nature or type; unnatural.
Lacking kindness, sympathy, benevolence, gratitude, or similar; cruel, harsh or unjust; ungrateful.
* 1950 July 3, Politicians Without Politics'', '' ,
* 1974 , Laurence William Wylie, Village in the Vaucluse , 3rd Edition,
* 2000 , Edward W. Said, On Lost Causes'', in ''Reflections on Exile and Other Essays ,
As a verb condescend
is (lb) to come down from one's superior position; to deign (to do something).As an adjective unkind is
(obsolete) having no race or kindred; childless.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
* *unkind
English
Adjective
(en-adj)- (Shakespeare)
page 16,
- Despite the bursitis, Dewey got in a good round of golf, though his cautious game inspired a reporter to make one of the week?s unkindest remarks: “He plays golf like he plays politics — straight down the middle, and short.”
page 175,
- We had to learn that to refuse such gifts, which represented serious sacrifice, was more unkind than to accept them.
page 540,
- In the strictness with which he holds this view he belongs in the company of the novelists I have cited, except that he is unkinder and less charitable than they are.