# "To disrespect": how long has that been a verb? In different sociolinguistic areas (law/military)? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 5, 2016, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-disrespect-how-long-has-that-been-a-verb-in-different-sociolinguistic-areas-law-military/767714 "2016-10-05T16:01:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-disrespect-how-long-has-that-been-a-verb-in-different-sociolinguistic-areas-law-military/767714/1 "2016-10-05T16:01:03Z")
See query.I seem to remember a first time when “he disrespected me” became a thing to say, more precisely, that I first heard it by and when American blacks were…shown, as we used to say…disrespect. It now is all over the place. It still makes me, for one, twinge a little, but that’s life. (Things get verbed all the time, of course; it was a mainstay of Seinfeld verbal humor.) What’s the story on the verb? This OP is a spinoff on a thread about military inter-rank communications, where “disrespect” and the manners of expressing it are serious and defined; my question was whether any judicial codes use that verb at all. Is it used in other formal situations such as by lawyers and judges? I guess only anecdotal answers can be given, even though I’m sure there are “style books” which are quite seriously enforced in legal communicatin. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-disrespect-how-long-has-that-been-a-verb-in-different-sociolinguistic-areas-law-military/767714/2 "2016-10-05T16:25:02Z")
I’ve only heard it relatively recently (since the 1990s or so), starting out with black hip-hop culture and spreading from there. Poking around on google though, it looks like disrespect as a verb goes back to at least the 17th century. The hip-hoppers may be responsible for its current popularity, but it’s definitely not new. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-disrespect-how-long-has-that-been-a-verb-in-different-sociolinguistic-areas-law-military/767714/3 "2016-10-05T16:25:56Z")
Disrespect has been used as a verb for hundreds of years. It’s perfectly cromulent English. I don’t see why you doubt it. \*Morwent was an old and frugal father, a strong defender of his age against those that disrespected it, \* [1796](https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=YuxEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA131&dq=disrespected+him&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiV4_-siMTPAhVJKcAKHT1mBT04KBC7BQgwMAM#v=onepage&q=disrespected%20him&f=false) ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-disrespect-how-long-has-that-been-a-verb-in-different-sociolinguistic-areas-law-military/767714/4 "2016-10-05T16:27:40Z")
How long has it been a verb? For at the very least 400 years. Here are some cites from OED: > [@](#): > > 1614 G. Wither Sat. to King, Juvenilia (1633) 346 Here can I smile to see…how the mean mans suit is dis-respected. > 1633 Bp. J. Hall Plaine Explic. Hard Texts ii. 11 If he love the one, hee must disrespect the other. > 1683 W. Cave Ecclesiastici 231 (Basil) To honor him, and dis-respect his Friend, was to stroke a man’s head with one hand, and strike him with the other. > 1706 T. Hearne Remarks & Coll. 26 Apr. He was disrespected in Oxford by several men who now speak well of him. > 1852 L. Hunt Poems Pref. 27 As if…sorrow disrespected things homely. > 1885 G. Meredith Diana of Crossways I. 257 You will judge whether he disrespects me . ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-disrespect-how-long-has-that-been-a-verb-in-different-sociolinguistic-areas-law-military/767714/5 "2016-10-05T16:41:34Z")
Ususally it’s shortened to just ‘dis’ (or ‘diss’). I first heard “diss” in the Carl Weathers classic “Action Jackson” (1988). ---
**Author:** ![iceiso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3be4f8/32.png) [@iceiso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iceiso)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-disrespect-how-long-has-that-been-a-verb-in-different-sociolinguistic-areas-law-military/767714/6 "2016-10-05T17:04:04Z")
Disprespect? Never heard of that one… ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-disrespect-how-long-has-that-been-a-verb-in-different-sociolinguistic-areas-law-military/767714/7 "2016-10-05T17:12:37Z")
The shortened form “dis” is much more recent however. The first citation in The Historical Dictionary of American Slang is from 1982. –Mark ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-disrespect-how-long-has-that-been-a-verb-in-different-sociolinguistic-areas-law-military/767714/8 "2016-10-05T17:20:45Z")
“Disrespect” seems OK to me as a verb. If you can respect someone, why can’t you disrespect them, too? And, as has been pointed out, it’s been in use for a few hundred years. ---
**Author:** ![toocrazy2yoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@toocrazy2yoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toocrazy2yoo)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-disrespect-how-long-has-that-been-a-verb-in-different-sociolinguistic-areas-law-military/767714/9 "2016-10-05T18:09:35Z")
You don’t disrespect people, you don’t Diss them. You show disrespect for another individual. As an added bonus, I can hold nothing contempt for any moron that seriously considers the slang usage proper English. See, we lost control of our own language, the King’s English, and here we are with scads of morons that can’t speak our language. So they just invent stuff. Diss is one of them. Using “disrespect” as a verb is another. That’s ok, bruh, I get it. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-disrespect-how-long-has-that-been-a-verb-in-different-sociolinguistic-areas-law-military/767714/10 "2016-10-05T18:15:13Z")
> [@toocrazy2yoo](#): > > You don’t disrespect people, you don’t Diss them. You show disrespect for another individual. As an added bonus, I can hold nothing contempt for any moron that seriously considers the slang usage proper English. See, we lost control of our own language, the King’s English, and here we are with scads of morons that can’t speak our language. So they just invent stuff. Diss is one of them. Using “disrespect” as a verb is another. That’s ok, bruh, I get it. Don’t disrespect the Oxford English Dictionary like that! ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-disrespect-how-long-has-that-been-a-verb-in-different-sociolinguistic-areas-law-military/767714/11 "2016-10-05T18:50:52Z")
> [@toocrazy2yoo](#): > > You don’t disrespect people, you don’t Diss them. You show disrespect for another individual. As an added bonus, I can hold nothing contempt for any moron that seriously considers the slang usage proper English. See, we lost control of our own language, the King’s English, and here we are with scads of morons that can’t speak our language. So they just invent stuff. Diss is one of them. Using “disrespect” as a verb is another. Are you the new authority on what constitutes proper English? Where are you getting this “rule” from, given that “disrespect” has been used as a verb for over 400 years, as shown by the OED citations? I guess “we” (whoever that is) lost control of the King’s English sometime before the 17th century. > [@toocrazy2yoo](#): > > That’s ok, bruh, I get it. No, I don’t think you do. Language changes. –Mark ---
**Author:** ![D18](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@D18](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D18)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-disrespect-how-long-has-that-been-a-verb-in-different-sociolinguistic-areas-law-military/767714/12 "2016-10-05T18:57:35Z")
Huh. I don’t know why I thought this, but it seemed to me the modern use of the verb disrespect referred more to the act of being disrespectful rather than the state of holding someone in disrespect. I guess I’m working backwards from “to dis”. So all those historical citations refer to a state of disrespect rather than the act of disrespecting someone, and that perhaps is the difference betwen slang usage and traditional usage. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-disrespect-how-long-has-that-been-a-verb-in-different-sociolinguistic-areas-law-military/767714/13 "2016-10-05T20:07:28Z")
**D18** , I’m not following you. Are you saying that you think the modern use of the verb “disrespect” is normally intransitive? All of the OED citations show the verb used transitively, and that seems to be the modern usage as well. –Mark ---
**Author:** ![toocrazy2yoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@toocrazy2yoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toocrazy2yoo)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-disrespect-how-long-has-that-been-a-verb-in-different-sociolinguistic-areas-law-military/767714/14 "2016-10-05T20:28:44Z")
> [@gnoitall](#): > > Don’t disrespect the Oxford English Dictionary like that! Did I exhibit disrespect? Uh oh. ---
**Author:** ![toocrazy2yoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@toocrazy2yoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toocrazy2yoo)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-disrespect-how-long-has-that-been-a-verb-in-different-sociolinguistic-areas-law-military/767714/15 "2016-10-05T20:29:56Z")
Yep, my mistake too. My bad! ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-disrespect-how-long-has-that-been-a-verb-in-different-sociolinguistic-areas-law-military/767714/16 "2016-10-05T21:53:35Z")
> [@toocrazy2yoo](#): > > Yep, my mistake too. My bad! [Here’s a link to Webster’s Dictionary from 1886](https://archive.org/details/websterscomplete00webs). Download the PDF and look at page 392. > [@](#): > > Dis’re spect’, _v.t._ […] To show disrespect to. This is a dictionary from **1886**. The word has been used as a verb for a long time and noted as such in dictionaries from the 19th century. So go ahead and feel smug in your contempt for those who use it as a verb. You’re simply wrong about this. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-disrespect-how-long-has-that-been-a-verb-in-different-sociolinguistic-areas-law-military/767714/17 "2016-10-05T22:43:53Z")
> [@markn\_1](#): > > **D18** , I’m not following you. Are you saying that you think the modern use of the verb “disrespect” is normally intransitive? IAN **D18** and cannot speak for them, but I think I see what they meant: namely, that the modern usage of “to disrespect” is more likely to refer to an _action_, while the earlier sense seems to suggest a _state of mind_. (But the verb is transitive in both cases.) Here’s a made-up example to illustrate what I mean: “To disrespect”, traditional sense: _The rich man contemptuously threw the coins on the counter because he disrespected the shopkeeper’s humble condition._ “To disrespect”, modern sense: _The rich man disrespected the humble shopkeeper by contemptuously throwing the coins on the counter._ ---
**Author:** ![D18](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@D18](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D18)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-disrespect-how-long-has-that-been-a-verb-in-different-sociolinguistic-areas-law-military/767714/18 "2016-10-05T22:59:41Z")
^Yes, this is exactly what I was getting at. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-disrespect-how-long-has-that-been-a-verb-in-different-sociolinguistic-areas-law-military/767714/19 "2016-10-05T23:09:34Z")
[How does this fit into the above?](https://books.google.com/books?id=l29KAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA171&dq=%22disrespected+him%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwikw8uS48TPAhUE04MKHSLJA_8Q6AEIKjAC#v=onepage&q=%22disrespected%20him%22&f=false) > [@](#): > > After dinner, Capt. Richardson, Commandant of the Soldiers, told us that, passing by the Duch Shipps, they hailed the Boates, asking them “Whether they were going to Bantam with their Soldiers”; which so much enraged the President that he vowed all manner of revenge that lay in his power when it should please God to bring him to the Fort, especially in regard **the Duch had so much slighted and disrespected him at Hugly** as not to take the least notice of him since his arrival in these parts, and had always whewne themselves exceeding kind an respectfull to me. [emphasis mine] From _The Diary of William Hedges, Esq._, 1887. ETA: I guess you could say that refers to state of mind, but in both usages the definition of “to show disrespect to” fits. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-disrespect-how-long-has-that-been-a-verb-in-different-sociolinguistic-areas-law-military/767714/20 "2016-10-05T23:25:38Z")
Yup, I think we’re all on the same page here. Even more concisely: “To disrespect”, traditional sense: To despise or look down upon. “To disrespect”, modern sense: To affront or insult.