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Glite Dictionary
to detest

to detest

49 3.5
To feel a very strong dislike for someone or something
  • verb
  • /dɪˈtɛst/
translation icon : detestar
  • She really detests strong coffee and prefers tea instead.
  • detest people
  • things I detest
  • come to detest

Women biologically detest weakness and they reject fragile men.

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Examples

  • All right, if mint is like a flavour you detest, it's mint.

  • Wigner needed and enjoyed personal freedom and detested dictatorships and communism.

    Academic text (1995)

  • Well, they, they might be people that detest me, right?

  • I was talking about why I detest religion.

  • I rate him very highly, but I do detest what he was doing in his fiction.

    Gregory B. Sadler - That Philosophy Guy

  • I detest this place.

    Meet the Applegates (1990)

  • I detest cheap sentiment.

    All About Eve (1950)

  • I detest cilantro.

    Fast Charlie (2023)

  • I detest bath robes.

    Spawn of the Slithis (1978)

  • Katherine Woolley quickly came to detest Christie, who was subsequently banished from the dig.

    Academic text (2011)

Synonyms

to hate
vsto detest
∞ 1.0

To feel a very strong dislike for someone or something

is about intense aversion without necessarily showing active hostility
to can't stand
vsto detest
516 3.2

Strongly dislike and be unable to bear something or someone

is the more formal term for the same strong inability to tolerate
to despise
vsto detest
192 4.9

To strongly dislike and have no respect for someone or something

focuses on intense aversion or antipathy rather than moral contempt
to loathe
vsto detest
58 5.3

To dislike someone or something very strongly

is broader, naming strong aversion not only physical disgust
to abhor
vsto detest
26 7.8

To hate something very much

is the more common neutral word used in everyday speech
to abominate
vsto detest
  • Formal
1 9.4

To hate something very strongly

is the usual modern verb for strong dislike in normal speech

Antonyms

to love
∞ 1.0

To feel strong affection and great pleasure for someone or something

to admire
743 1.6

To feel respect and pleasure when you look at someone or something

How Disliked

to abhor
26 7.8
to hate
∞ 1.0
to detest
49 3.5
dislike
  • Texting
49 1.0

Surface Forms

detest infinitive
detested past
detested past participle
detesting present participle
detests third person singular

Etymology

The word detest comes from the parts de- and test, where test is the same root as the English test or testify and originally meant 'to call as a witness'. Long ago it was used to 'call someone bad' or to 'curse' them, so detest came to mean a very strong dislike or hate.