to talk down to
15
6.6
- phrasal verb
- /tɔk daʊn tu/
- Offensive
:
tratar con condescendencia
- I am asking very nicely to please stop talking down to me like that.
But I never have and never will talk down to people who don't take the vaccine.
- But I never have and never will talk down to people who don't take the vaccine.
- But when he was drinking, he would talk down to my mother, and I hated him for it.
- His prose is always cleat, clean, tight and intelligent, and he never, ever talked down to his reader.
- One of the ways that has been very successful for the truth campaign is, you know, we'll always say give young people the facts, don't talk down to them, don't finger wag.
- If you can communicate in a non judge mental way, in a compassionate way, not talking down to people, then people actually will make change.
- People sometimes talk down to me, call me naive, perhaps they are right, but it is who I am.
- Do you have any advice for us on how you talk to non scientists, politicians, people in power without talking down to them?
- Not attacking them, not talking down to them, but clearly stating what the issue is, why there's a disconnect.
- I think young people are seeing that that kind of talking down to people from a position of power.
- Don't yell, don't menace, don't be passive aggressive, don't demean, don't talk down to people, don't yell at people.
- You know, they, you know, when you abuse a kid, when you sexually molest them, when you do all these terrible things, when you talk down to them, they end up broken.
Examples
-
Now that she was grown and married, she talked down to me as if my mind was gone.
Fiction book (1990) -
And that's why I am so successful, because I don't talk down to people and I'm not some doctor that is that is diagnosing you.
-
We're doing important stuff here, you know, and you talk down to people and you.
-
How much did this doctor seem to treat you with respect and not talk down to you?
Academic text (1993) -
One never got the sense that he was talking down to you.
Blog text (27) -
Please do not take offense; I am not trying to talk down to you.
Blog text (26) -
The last thing you want to do is make people feel like you're talking down to them.
-
I knew talking down to students and yelling at them was inappropriate behavior for a teacher.
Academic text (2014) -
I never did talk down to my girls the way some grown-up folks do with children.
Fiction book (1993) -
It's frustrating when he always talks down to his colleagues during meetings.
Synonyms
55
4.9
To make someone feel unimportant by saying bad things about them
53
3.7
Think you are better than someone and treat them as less important
52
7.0
To treat someone as if you are better or smarter than them
14
6.7
To speak to someone as if they are less smart or less important
7
7.8
To act as if you are better than other people and make them feel small
7
8.2
Treat someone as if you are better than them
3
8.6
To say bad things about someone to make them look worse
1
8.4
Say or do things that make someone seem less respected
Talk to someone in a way that shows you feel better than them
Showing that someone or something has little value
To say things that make other people feel small
Antonyms
- Informal
5
3.9
Give someone very special care and attention like a king or queen
How Condescending
- Offensive
414
6.1
53
6.8
- Offensive
52
7.0
- Offensive
15
6.6
45
5.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
talk + down + to
The constituent 'talk' (to speak) combined with 'down' suggests lowering someone by speech, so a learner can infer a general sense of speaking in a way that diminishes the other person. However, the specific condescending/pejorative nuance and the fixed phrasal pattern 'talk down to' are not fully predictable without exposure, making it only partially transparent.
Etymology
Talk down to comes from the image of someone standing higher and speaking down to a person below, as if making them smaller. So, it now means 'to speak to someone as if they are less intelligent or important'.