umbrage

plural umbrages

1. countableuncountableA feeling of anger or annoyance caused by something offensive.

   She looked very neurotic, moving in a jerky way, her body giving little twitches of habitual umbrage.

   1960, Muriel Spark, chapter 10, in The Bachelors, London: Macmillan

   5 more examples

   Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur.

   1796, George Washington, "Farewell Address", American Daily Advertiser

   —He took umbrage at something or other, that muchinjured but on the whole eventempered person declared, I let slip.

   1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 16]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC

   If she knew [a psychiatrist was] observing her son with a view to finding out if he was foggy between the ears, there would be umbrage on her part, or even dudgeon.

   1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter VI

   When the call is over, Cooper thanks her — for leashing the dog, but for also endangering him, for living down to herself, for quite a performance of umbrage.

   2020 June 3, Wesley Morris, “The Videos That Rocked America. The Song That Knows Our Rage.”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 04 Jun 2020

   The president [Mr. Nixon] took umbrage at [The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour's] jokes about him and an unpopular war.

   2026 May 20, Stephen Humphries, “End of Stephen Colbert’s show illustrates risks of stirring a polarized nation to laughter”, in The Christian Science Monitor, Boston, Massachusetts: Christian Science Publishing Society, →ISSN, →OCLC

   Synonyms: annoyance, displeasure, odium, offense, resentment, huff, miff, peeve

2. countableuncountableA feeling of doubt.

   Synonyms: suspicion

3. countableuncountableLeaves that provide shade, as the foliage of trees.

   It was a relief to change the cheerful meadow for the dark umbrage of the forest which they now entered.

   1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXXII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 325

   1 more example

   The handsome dark-eyed boy is Master George Talboys, who declines musa at Eton, and fishes for tadpoles in the clear water under the spreading umbrage beyond the ivied walls of the academy.

   1862, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley's Secret

4. countableobsoleteuncountableShadow; shade.

   […] but in the verity of extolment I take him to be a soul of great article and his infusion of such dearth and rareness as, to make true diction of him, his semblable in his mirror, and who else would trace him, his umbrage, nothing more.

   c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]

present singular third person umbrages · participle present umbraging · participle past umbraged · past umbraged

1. transitiveTo displease or cause offense.
2. transitiveTo shade.