deign.
To consider it appropriate or worthy to do or give (something), often when it is seen as beneath one's dignity; to condescend, to vouchsafe.
Meaning & usage
To consider it appropriate or worthy to do or give (something), often when it is seen as beneath one's dignity; to condescend, to vouchsafe.
To consider it appropriate or worthy to accept or take (something).
Often followed by of: to consider (someone) as worthy of something; to dignify.
To consider it appropriate or worthy to do something, often when it is seen as beneath one's dignity; to condescend, to think fit, to vouchsafe.
He didn’t even deign to give us a nod of the head; he thought us that far beneath him.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English deinen, deynen (“to consider (something) suitable to one’s dignity or worth, condescend; to appear worthy; to condescend to grant (something), permit, vouchsafe; to regard (someone) as worthy; to consecrate, dedicate (something)”), from Old French daigner, degnier, deigner, deignier (“to condescend, deign”) (modern French daigner), from Latin dignāre, the present active infinitive of dignō (“to deem fitting, suitable, or worthy; to condescend, deign”), from dignus (“fitting, suitable, worthy; worthy of”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *deḱ- (“to perceive; to take”)) + -ō (suffix forming first-conjugation verbs). cognates * Italian degnare * Occitan deinar, denhar
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.