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Discredit vs Contumely - What's the difference?

discredit | contumely | Related terms |

Discredit is a related term of contumely.


As nouns the difference between discredit and contumely

is that discredit is disrepute while contumely is offensive and abusive language or behaviour; scorn, insult.

discredit

English

Verb

(en verb)
  • To harm the good reputation of a person; to cause an idea or piece of evidence to seem false or unreliable.
    • The candidate tried to discredit his opponent.
    The evidence would tend to discredit such a theory.

    Synonyms

    * demean, disgrace, dishonour, disprove, invalidate, tell against

    Derived terms

    * discreditor

    Noun

    (-)
  • The act of discrediting or disbelieving, or the state of being discredited or disbelieved.
    • Later accounts have brought the story into discredit .
  • A degree of dishonour or disesteem; ill repute; reproach.
  • * Rogers
    • It is the duty of every Christian to be concerned for the reputation or discredit his life may bring on his profession.

    Synonyms

    * (degree of dishonour) demerit

    contumely

    English

    Noun

  • Offensive and abusive language or behaviour; scorn, insult.
  • * :
    • For who would beare the Whips and Scornes of time, The Oppressors wrong, the poore mans Contumely [...].
  • * 1857 , , Volume the Second, page 19 (ISBN 1857150570)
    • She had been subjected to contumely and cross-questoning and ill-usage through the whole evening.
  • * 1914 , (Grace Livingston Hill), The Best Man :
    • What scorn, what contumely , would be his!
  • * 1953 , (James Strachey), translating Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams , Avon Books, p. 178:
    • If this picture of the two psychical agencies and their relation to the consciousness is accepted, there is a complete analogy in political life to the extraordinary affection which I felt in my dream for my friend R., who was treated with such contumely during the dream's interpretation.
  • * 1976 , (Robert Nye), Falstaff :
    • I could think of no words adequate to the occasion. So I belched. Not out of contumely , you understand. It was a sympathetic belch, a belch of brotherhood.