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disrespectful

UK/dɪs.ɹɪˈspɛkt.fəl/US/dɪs.ɹɪˈspɛkt.fəl/
adjectiveB1+Common in everyday speech and writing · #5,871 of 15,258leans spoken

Disrespectful means showing no proper regard for somebody. Talking over them, or treating what matters to them as a joke.

It takes to or towards, and it is a serious charge in most settings, since being disrespectful to a person's beliefs, culture or grief is worse than mere rudeness. Schools and workplaces use it as a formal category of behaviour. The noun is disrespect, which also works as a verb in informal speech, often shortened to dis. The positive form, respectful, is the word you want on a reference.

Definitions of disrespectful

  1. 1adjectivedisrespectfulShowing a lack of proper regard for someone or something.B1+

    “It would be disrespectful to leave before the speeches.”

Where it comes from

From dis- + respectful.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Word Building

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disrespectful in the wild

  • Some critics described such action as disrespectful to the players and the ground crews.

    Jordan Baker (umpire)

  • To promote the album, Fat Joe billed his Eminem collaboration as "the most disrespectful song".

    Lord Above

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

  • respect
  • disrespect
  • respectful
  • respectable
  • respectfully