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insolence

nounverbattested in dialogue

  • //ˈɪn.sə.ləns//

Contemptible, ill-mannered conduct; insulting: arrogant, bold behaviour or attitude.

noun

  1. 1

    Contemptible, ill-mannered conduct; insulting: arrogant, bold behaviour or attitude.

    all the insolence of imaginary superiority

    There she was, doing rude things, and saying ruder, which every body bore with the best grace in the world: then, as now, it was perfectly astonishing what people in general will submit to in the way of insolence, provided the said insolence be attended by rank and riches.

    The coarseness and truth of her attack alike overwhelmed him. But her supreme insolence found him words, and he too burst forth. "Yes! and I forbid you to do it! You despise me, perhaps, and think I'm feeble. But you're mistaken. You are ungrateful, impertinent, and contemptible, but I will save you in order to save Irma and our name.

    They are fond of fun and therefore witty, wit being well-bred insolence.

  2. 2

    Insolent conduct or treatment; insult.

    Two heavy iron chains were put about his neck, (in metal and weight different from them he bore before!) and, loaded with fetters and insolences from the soldiers, (who in such ware seldom give scant measure,) he was brought into the presence of Isaacius.

  3. 3

    obsoleteThe quality of being unusual or novel.

    Her great excellence / Lifts me above the measure of my might / That being fild with furious insolence / I feele my selfe like one yrapt in spright.

Etymology

From Middle French insolence, from Latin īnsolentia.

verb

  1. 1

    obsoleteTo insult.

    ...we are bound to assert that we never heard either in his public discourses or private conversation, anything that might tend towards encouraging sedition, or anyways insolencing the government

    bishops, who were first foully insolenced and assaulted.

Forms

plural
insolences
past tense
insolenced
past participle
insolenced
present participle
insolencing
third person singular
insolences
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).