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detestation

detestation

1 8.6
A very strong feeling of hate and disgust for someone or something
  • noun
  • /ˌdɛtəˈsteɪʃən/
translation icon : detestación
  • Her detestation of injustice motivated her to become a lawyer.

The days of the moral maze and my strange semi friendship, semi detestation with Rabbi Hugo grin of the Reform synagogue.

Examples

  • This would excite universal discontent and detestation among the members of the government.

    Academic text (2004)
  • All the signs, enough to make me shiver with fear and detestation, and yet I wasn't paralyzed by it, not this time, but felt instead a business-like determination that made me march straight back to the house and pick up the phone.

    Fiction book (2000)
  • I hold you in detestation, whatever the hell that man means.

  • And that, therefore, should all these be held in fear and detestation by the South?

    Academic text (2004)
  • You must show him your detestation of the crime he has committed.

    Academic text (1992)
  • No man exists who does not hold you in detestation.

  • I don't have detestation for most people at all.

  • Can a different form of common identity, forged in tolerance and not in detestation, be built by former enemies who are now again neighbors?

    Academic text (2006)
  • The wiser and better sort of the common people, therefore, have always the utmost abhorrence and detestation of such excesses, which their experience tells them are so immediately fatal to people of their condition.

    Academic text (1991)
  • One source of Emma's detestation of Jude was the cheerlessness of its presentation of the human condition, and by the mid-1890s she was moving away from Hardy intellectually no less decisively than he was moving away from her emotionally.

    Blog text (31)

Synonyms

hatred
vsdetestation
394 1.9

A very strong dislike that can make a person want to hurt others

also involves deep aversion as well as hostility rather than hostility alone
disgust
vsdetestation
87 2.0

A strong feeling of dislike and being sick because something is offensive

also includes intense hostility and deep aversion rather than mere disapproval
loathing
vsdetestation
48 5.2

A strong feeling of hatred and disgust for someone or something

is the same intense feeling described in the key concept
revulsion
vsdetestation
18 6.3

A strong feeling of disgust at something very unpleasant

also includes intense hostility not just aversion alone
enmity
vsdetestation
16 8.0

A strong feeling of hatred toward people or groups

also carries deep aversion and stronger negative feeling beyond mere hostility
repulsion
vsdetestation
3 6.2

A strong feeling of dislike and disgust

also carries intense hostility as well as aversion
repugnance
vsdetestation
3 8.4

A strong feeling of dislike or disgust

adds intense hostility as well as aversion too
abhorrence
vsdetestation
2 7.8

A very strong feeling of hate and disgust

is the same intense feeling described in the key concept
repugnancy
vsdetestation
9.1

A strong feeling of disgust or deep dislike

contains intense hostility combined with aversion rather than mere incompatibility
despising
vsdetestation
7.4

A strong feeling of dislike and scorn for someone or something

also involves strong aversion as well as hostility rather than scorn alone
despisal
vsdetestation
  • Archaic
8.9

Strong feeling of dislike and scorn for someone or something

also adds intense aversion not just contempt or hostility

Antonyms

317 1.4

A gentle warm feeling for a person, animal, or thing

106 1.8

A feeling of respect and approval for someone or something

How Hateful

loathing
48 5.2
detestation
1 8.6
hatred
394 1.9
dislike
  • Texting
49 1.0

Surface Forms

detestation singular
detestations plural

Morphology

detestation = detest (transparent) = detest + ation

A regular nominalization of the verb 'detest' with '-ation'; the noun denotes the state or action of detesting and is directly derivable.

Etymology

Detestation comes from Latin parts de- ('completely' or 'away') and testari ('to call as a witness'), the same root as testify. It once had the force of calling something down, like a curse, and that strong feeling is why detestation now means intense hate and disgust.