AFFRONT • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Affront

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/əfrˈənt/ Listen

noun

Affront n.

1.

An encounter either friendly or hostile. (Obs.) "I walked about, admired of all, and dreaded On hostile ground, none daring my affront."

2.

Contemptuous or rude treatment which excites or justifies resentment; marked disrespect; a purposed indignity; insult. "Offering an affront to our understanding."

3.

An offense to one's self-respect; shame.

Synonyms: Affront, Insult, Outrage. An affront is a designed mark of disrespect, usually in the presence of others. An insult is a personal attack either by words or actions, designed to humiliate or degrade. An outrage is an act of extreme and violent insult or abuse. An affront piques and mortifies; an insult irritates and provokes; an outrage wounds and injures. "Captious persons construe every innocent freedom into an affront. When people are in a state of animosity, they seek opportunities of offering each other insults. Intoxication or violent passion impels men to the commission of outrages."

verb

Affront v. t. (past & past part. affronted; pres. part. affronting)

1.

To front; to face in position; to meet or encounter face to face. (Obs.) "All the sea-coasts do affront the Levant." "That he, as 't were by accident, may here Affront Ophelia."

2.

To face in defiance; to confront; as, to affront death; hence, to meet in hostile encounter. (Archaic)

3.

To offend by some manifestation of disrespect; to insult to the face by demeanor or language; to treat with marked incivility. "How can any one imagine that the fathers would have dared to affront the wife of Aurelius?"

Synonyms: To insult; abuse; outrage; wound; illtreat; slight; defy; offend; provoke; pique; nettle.

See images of 'Affront'

Etymology of 'Affront'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Affront" Quotes from Famous Books

... ears; and then they should pop it into the sty unknown to Hannah Higgins, and all lie in wait to hear what would happen; and when it squealed, she would think it the baby crying; but there Susan burst out at the notion of any one thinking a child could scream like a pig, taking it as an affront to all babyhood; and Miss Fosbrook took ...

— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge

... were before the English came. As a race, Giles Hocquart says, they were physically strong, well set-up, with plenty of stamina. They impressed La Hontan also as vigorous and untiring at anything that happened to gain their interest. They were fond of honours and sensitive to the slightest affront. This in part accounts for their tendency to litigiousness, which various intendants mentioned with regret. The habitant went to law with his neighbour at every opportunity. His attitude toward questions of public ...

— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro

... are things in the life of a garcon before marriage which would be an affront to the modesty of his fiancee to communicate and discuss. But then those things must belong exclusively to the past and cast no shadow over the future. I will not interrupt you further. No doubt you have work for the night before you. Do the Red journalists for whom you write pay ...

— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... presentation to the features of some woman on the stage or in the auditory. An actress's pretty face or graceful figure many times diverted his attention from her professional incompetence. It is doubtful if there were any affront which Pepys would not pardon in a pretty woman. Once when he was in the pit, this curious experience befell him. "I sitting behind in a dark place," he writes, "a lady spit backward upon me by mistake, not seeing me; but after seeing her to be a very pretty lady, I was not ...

— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee

... mark of contempt for the senate, he added another affront still more outrageous. For when, after the sacred rites of the Latin festival, he was returning home, amidst the immoderate and unusual acclamations (48) of the people, a man in the crowd put a laurel crown, encircled with a white fillet [89], on ...

— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

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