dishonour

UK/dɪsˈɒnə(ɹ)/US/dɪsˈɒnə(ɹ)/

nounB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,867 of 15,258leans spoken

Dishonour is loss of honour and good name. Bring dishonour on the family, die rather than face dishonour, dishonour a cheque.

It is a heavy old word and it belongs to codes where reputation was everything. In banking it is technical and unemotional: to dishonour a cheque is to refuse to pay it. American writing spells it dishonor.

Definitions of dishonour

1noundishonourLoss of honour and good name.B2+
“He felt that losing the battle would bring dishonour on his family.”

dishonour is a loss of standing.

Also accepted in games: dishonor

Where it comes from

Old French deshonor, dis- plus honour, from Latin honor.

Old French
deshonor
English, today
dishonour

From Old French deshonor, equivalent to dis- + honour.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Word Building

Practise this word

dishonour in the wild

An NSF cheque may be referred to as a bad cheque, dishonoured cheque, bounced cheque, cold cheque, rubber cheque, returned item, or hot cheque.
Dishonoured cheque
A bank cannot partially pay on a cheque, so that it must either pay a cheque in full or dishonour it.
Dishonoured cheque
However, once Gaullist propaganda took hold, with its message of escape from dishonour, the group fell in with it.
Groupe du musée de l'Homme
However, a state flag should not dishonour the national flag.
List of Indian state flags

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

honour

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