What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Spurn vs Shove - What's the difference?

spurn | shove |

As verbs the difference between spurn and shove

is that spurn is (ambitransitive) to reject disdainfully; contemn; scorn while shove is to push, especially roughly or with force.

As nouns the difference between spurn and shove

is that spurn is an act of spurning; a scornful rejection while shove is a rough push.

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.

    • shove

    English

    Verb

    (shov)
  • To push, especially roughly or with force.
  • *, chapter=12
    • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients , passage=So, after a spell, he decided to make the best of it and shoved us into the front parlor. 'Twas a dismal sort of place, with hair wreaths, and wax fruit, and tin lambrekins, and land knows what all}}
  • To move off or along by an act of pushing, as with an oar or pole used in a boat; sometimes with off .
  • * Garth
    • He grasped the oar, received his guests on board, and shoved from shore.
  • To make an all-in bet.
  • (label) To pass (counterfeit money).

    • Derived terms

    * shover * shove off * shove-it * push and shove * shove ha'penny

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A rough push.
  • * Jonathan Swift
    • I rested and then gave the boat another shove .
  • (poker slang) An all-in bet.

    • Derived terms

    * when push comes to shove