belittle

What it means

1. ambitransitiveTo disparage, depreciate, or minimize the importance, value, merit, or significance of someone or something.First known use 1782

   Don't belittle your colleagues.

   3 more examples

   An essential part of any German campaign is obviously the efficiency of its lines of communication and therefore it is dangerous to belittle our enemy's strength in this direction.

   1941 March, “Notes and News: Underestimating the Enemy's Strength”, in Railway Magazine, page 129

   Under the rules as understood by the New York Times, the West is free to mock and belittle its Judeo-Christian inheritance, and, likewise, the Muslim world is free to mock and belittle the West's Judeo-Christian inheritance.

   2006, Mark Steyn, chapter 9, in America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, →ISBN, page 201

   For many of us, the realization that people in power, regardless of political party, would belittle, name call and seek retribution has been a shock.

   2025 April 11, Carol Burton, “What We Believed About America”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 11 Apr 2025

   Synonyms: understate, make light of, denigrate, degrade, deprecate, disparage, downplay, play down · Antonyms: big up, exaggerate, big up, cut it fat, exaggerate, hyperbolize, overcharge, overdo

2. transitiveTo make small.

   Now, the big blue space of river and sky belittled him, ulled him back into bewildered childhood.

   2022, Ian McEwan, Lessons, page 357

   Synonyms: abase, besmall, smallify, abase, abate, besmall, bring down, embase

In a sentence

Don't belittle your colleagues.

Where it comes from

From be- + little. Coined by Thomas Jefferson in 1782.

First known use: 1782