spurn

/spɜːn/

Etymology

From Middle English spurnen, spornen, from Old English spurnan (“to strike against, kick, spurn, reject; stumble”), from Proto-Germanic *spurnaną (“to tread, kick, knock out”), from Proto-Indo-European *sperH-. Cognate with Scots spurn (“to strike, push, kick”), German spornen (“to spur on”), Icelandic sporna, spyrna (“to kick”), Latin spernō (“despise, distain, scorn”). Related to spur and spread.

spurn means an act of spurning; a scornful rejection. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 74 out of 100.

Why this word is great

SPURN — [Verb] To reject with contemptuous disdain, as if pushing away with the foot. From Middle English spurnen, spornen, from Old English spurnan ("to strike against, kick, reject, stumble"), from Proto-Germanic *spurnaną ("to tread, kick"), from Proto-Indo-European *sperH-. Unlike "decline," a genteel demurral, or "reject," a clinical dismissal, to spurn is to lace refusal with the insult of disgust. It is the dismissive toe-poke that sends a rival's gift skittering across the stones, the lover's letter dropped unopened into the fire, the sovereign heel brought down upon a heartfelt proposal—a final, kinetic verdict that etches the contours of one's own disdain.

noun

An act of spurning; a scornful rejection.
A kick; a blow with the foot.“What defence can properly be used in such a despicable encounter as this but either the slap or the spurn?”
Disdainful rejection; contemptuous treatment.“The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes.”
A body of coal left to sustain an overhanging mass.

verb

To reject disdainfully; contemn; scorn.“to spurn at your most royal image”
To reject something by pushing it away with the foot.“Me thinks I ſee kings kneeling at his feet, And he with frowning browes and fiery lookes, Spurning their crownes from off their captiue heads.”
To waste; fail to make the most of (an opportunity)“Marouane Chamakh then spurned a great chance to kill the game off when he ran onto Andrey Arshavin's lofted through ball but shanked his shot horribly across the face of goal.”
To kick or toss up the heels.“oft' the ſudden Gale Ruffles the Tide, and ſhifts the dang'rous Sail, […] The drunken Chairman in the Kennel ſpurns, The Glaſſes ſhatters, and his Charge o'erturns.”