discountenance

present singular third person discountenances · participle present discountenancing · participle past discountenanced · past discountenanced

1. transitiveTo have an unfavorable opinion of; to deprecate or disapprove of.

   A town meeting was convened to discountenance riot.

   1855, George Bancroft, chapter XXX, in History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent, volume V, London: Routledge, page 74

   3 more examples

   So far from friendship being an institution whose value is recognised and understood, it is at best scantily acknowledged, and is often actually discountenanced and misunderstood.

   1908, Edward Carpenter, chapter 4, in The Intermediate Sex, London: George Allen & Unwin, published 1921, page 90

   Mr Macgregor stiffened at the word 'nigger', which is discountenanced in India.

   1934, George Orwell, Burmese Days

   'Mrs' was a word somewhat discountenanced by the Party—you were supposed to call everyone 'comrade'—but with some women one used it instinctively.

   1949, George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Part One, Chapter 2

2. transitiveTo abash, embarrass or disconcert.

   The hermit was somewhat discountenanced by this observation.

   1820, Walter Scott, chapter 16, in Ivanhoe

   1 more example

   How would one look from his Majeſtick brow, / Seated as on the top of Vertues hill, / Diſcount'nance her deſpiſ'd, and put to rout / All her array, her female pride deject, / Or turn to reverent awe? […]

   1671, John Milton, “The Second Book”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC, page 39, lines 216–220

3. transitiveTo refuse countenance or support to; to discourage.

   These were rejected by Parliament, which discountenanced the amalgamation of competing lines but gave broad approval in theory to end-on amalgamations.

   1948 January and February, “British Railways”, in Railway Magazine, page 1

1. uncountableCold treatment; disapprobation.

   Highly tenacious of preserving over the mind of Sir Aubrey an undisputed sway, Lady De Brooke had seen with great reluctance the ascendency his grand-daughters were acquiring, which she artfully hoped to repress by throwing discountenance on the visits of their father,[…]

   1838, [Letitia Elizabeth] Landon (indicated as editor), chapter VII, in Duty and Inclination: […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 92