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Spurn vs Flout - What's the difference?

spurn | flout |

As verbs the difference between spurn and flout

is that spurn is (ambitransitive) to reject disdainfully; contemn; scorn while flout is to express contempt for the rules by word or action.

As nouns the difference between spurn and flout

is that spurn is an act of spurning; a scornful rejection while flout is the act by which something is flouted.

spurn

English

Verb

(en verb)
  • (ambitransitive) To reject disdainfully; contemn; scorn.
  • * Shakespeare
    • to spurn at your most royal image
  • * Shakespeare
    • What safe and nicely I might well delay / By rule of knighthood, I disdain and spurn .
  • * John Locke
    • Domestics will pay a more cheerful service when they find themselves not spurned because fortune has laid them at their master's feet.
  • To reject something by pushing it away with the foot.
  • * Shakespeare
    • I spurn thee like a cur out of my way.
  • To waste; fail to make the most of (an opportunity)
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2011 , date=September 28 , author=Tom Rostance , title=Arsenal 2 - 1 Olympiakos , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=Marouane Chamakh then spurned a great chance to kill the game off when he ran onto Andrey Arshavin's lofted through ball but shanked his shot horribly across the face of goal.}}
  • (obsolete) To kick or toss up the heels.
  • * Chaucer
    • The miller spurned at a stone.
  • * Gay
    • The drunken chairman in the kennel spurns .

    Derived terms

    * spurner

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An act of spurning; a scornful rejection.
  • A kick; a blow with the foot.
  • * Milton
    • What defence can properly be used in such a despicable encounter as this but either the slap or the spurn ?
  • (obsolete) Disdainful rejection; contemptuous treatment.
  • * Shakespeare
    • The insolence of office and the spurns / That patient merit of the unworthy takes.
  • A body of coal left to sustain an overhanging mass.

    • flout

    English

    Verb

  • To express contempt for the rules by word or action.
  • * 2012 , The Economist, Sep 29th 2012 issue, Tax alchemy: Tech's avoidance
    • The manoeuvres of Microsoft and HP appear to comply with the letter of the regulations, even if they flout their spirit.
  • To scorn.
  • * Walton
    • Phillida flouts me.
  • * Byron
    • Three gaudy standards flout the pale blue sky.

    Usage notes

    * Do not confuse with flaunt.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The act by which something is flouted.
  • * 2012 , John Flowerdew, Discourse in English Language Education (page 97)
    • A flout is when someone deliberately and ostentatiously contravenes a maxim.