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disapprove

verbattested in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//dɪsəˈpɹuːv//

To condemn; to consider wrong or inappropriate; used with of.

verb

  1. 1

    To condemn; to consider wrong or inappropriate; used with of.

    She disapproves of rap music because of its sometimes aggressive lyrics.

    The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.

  2. 2

    To have or express an unfavorable opinion.

    Green washing schemes of corporations are disapproved by Greenpeace activists.

  3. 3

    To refuse to approve; reject.

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dwóh₁ Proto-Indo-European *d(w)is- Proto-Italic *dis- Latin dis- Old French des-bor. ▲ Latin dis-bor. Middle English dis- English dis- Proto-Indo-European *h₂éd Proto-Italic *ad Proto-Italic *ad- Latin ad- Proto-Indo-European *per-der.? Proto-Indo-European *per-der.? Proto-Indo-European *pér Proto-Indo-European *-o Proto-Indo-European *pró Proto-Indo-European *pro-der. Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH-der. Proto-Italic *proβwos Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Indo-European *-h₂tiinflu. Proto-Italic *-ājō Proto-Italic *-āō Proto-Italic *proβwāō Latin probō Latin approbāreder. Old French aproverbor. Middle English aproven English approve English disapprove From dis- + approve.

Forms

past tense
disapproved
past participle
disapproved
present participle
disapproving
third person singular
disapproves
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).