look down on

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English

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Alternative forms

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Pronunciation

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Verb

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look down on (third-person singular simple present looks down on, present participle looking down on, simple past and past participle looked down on)

  1. (transitive, idiomatic) To regard or treat as inferior.
    • 2009 September 25, Michael Deacon, “Ross Noble: interview”, in Telegraph.co.uk:
      He remembers feeling that people looked down on him, and, ‘realising I was rubbish at academic stuff’, he decided he'd join a circus.
  2. (transitive) To view from a vantage point.
    • 1948 March and April, “A Keypoint in an Intensive Service”, in Railway Magazine, page 115:
      High up on the viaduct, and approached by a spidery staircase from the street, it looks down on Southwark Cathedral.
  3. (transitive, idiomatic) To view [people or events on Earth] from the vantage point of the afterlife (originally, Heaven).
    I get a feeling Kurt Cobain is looking down on Nickelback and wondering what alternative rock has become.

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