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Make Your Point > Archived Issues > CONDESCEND

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pronounce CONDESCEND:

KON duh SEND
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connect this word to others:

People tend to say this condescendingly: 

(Source)

Ugh! That's condescension for you: the attitude of acting like you're better than someone else—smarter, more mature, more powerful, more sophisticated—while pretending to be nice to them. 

You can see the word descend inside condescend, which makes sense because condescending to someone involves looking down on them.

Words like descend and condescend are related to others about moving downward or upward, like scale, scan (originally "to climb the ups and downs of lines of poetry"), escalator, e__elon ("some specific level within an orderly system of levels"), fac____ desc____s ("an easy descent toward destruction or immoral behavior"), and e____t de l'escal__r ("a witty reply that comes to you too late because you've left the conversation and now you're climbing the stairs").

(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)   

definition:

Inside the word "condescend," you can glimpse some Latin bits (de, meaning "down;" con, meaning "together;" and scandere, meaning "climb") that literally mean "to climb down together."

That's what it first meant in English: to stoop down, or to climb down to a lower level. But the word quickly took on figurative meanings.

Today, when you condescend to do something, you do it while acting high and mighty about it, as if it's below you.

And when you condescend to someone below you—someone less intelligent, less mature, less powerful, or whatever—you climb down to their level in the sense that you lower yourself to talking with them or helping them, while acting high and mighty about it.

grammatical bits:

Part of speech:

Verb, the intransitive kind: "They condescended to answer our questions;" "They condescended to us."

Other forms: 

The other verb forms are "condescended" and "condescending."

"Condescending" is often an adjective, too: "They're so condescending;" "I hate their condescending smiles."

how to use it:

Pick the formal, common, very negative word "condescend" when you want to say that someone is acting haughty towards others while (at least seeming to be) helping them, including them, teaching them, or otherwise interacting with them.

Say that someone condescends to someone else. For example, in the movie Mean Girls, one of the popular girls, Gretchen, condescends to Cady, a new student: "So this is, like, a really huge deal. We wanna invite you to have lunch with us... every day for the rest of the week!"

Or, say that someone condescends to do something. "Gretchen condescends to inviting Cady to lunch."

Or, use "condescending" as an adjective, as in "Gretchen's invitation was so condescending." You might talk about people's condescending looks, smiles, laughs, comments, offers, or attitudes.

examples:

"[Workplaces] can offer ping pong tables and indoor putting greens and miniature basketball hoops emblazoned with the slogan: 'You matter.' But the moderators who work in these offices are not children, and they know when they are being condescended to."
 — Casey Newton, The Verge, 19 June 2019

"Physicists can harbor condescending attitudes toward advice from experts in other fields. For example, physicists who pride themselves on making decisions based on 'hard data' may scoff at survey data from social scientists in which students describe deficiencies in their training."
   — Jeffrey Mervis, Science, 1 March 2022

has this page helped you understand "condescend"?

   

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this term, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.


study it:

Explain the meaning of "condescend" without saying "patronize" or "lean down from your high horse."

try it out:

In The Verge, Julia Alexander complained about features in Netflix and Google that she finds condescending:

"Look, the 'still watching?' feature is, in all practicality, good. People fall asleep to Netflix, and it's not great for anyone — the environment, our bills, our minds, probably — if Netflix is running all night. At the same time, the 'still watching?' question makes my blood boil every time. It’s just... so condescending, the same way that if I spell something wrong in Google, I don’t need to see a sentence in all italics at the top of the page asking, 'Did you mean?'"

Do you agree or disagree with her? What about spell check, or autocorrect: do you find them truly helpful, or more condescending? Why?




before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game for this month is "That's Not a Thing, That's Two Things."

I describe it; you name it! For example, if I give you "It's that thing where Steve Harvey hosts two groups competing as vassals in medieval Europe," then you give me "Family Feudalism." To see the answer, scroll to the bottom.

Try this today:

It’s that thing where he'll sing "Hakuna Matata" with you as soon as he gets his tusked head out of this honey jar.

review this word:

1. One opposite of CONDESCENDING is

A. ARDENT: intensely eager or enthusiastic.
B. REVERENT: highly respectful or deeply admiring.
C. RETICENT: quiet and secretive or reluctant to comment.

2. The antagonists in the movie Better Off Dead are condescending: Roy says to a group of teenage girls, "_____;" and Mrs. Smith says to a teenage exchange student, "_____"

A. So, how do you like Greendale? And the school system, you find it adequate? .. I have great fear of tools. I once made a birdhouse in woodshop and the fair housing committee condemned it

B. I've been going to this high school for seven and a half years. I'm no dummy .. I'm the only person in Greendale that's ever skied the K-12 from the glacier and lived

C. Who'd like to hold my clipboard? You'll make a fine little helper .. That's a CHRISTmas present. Do YOU have CHRISTmas in FRANCE?




Answers to the review questions:
1. B
2. C

From the game:
That's Winnie-the-Pumbaa.


a final word:


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