affront

An open or intentional offense, slight, or insult.

Noun

  1. An open or intentional offense, slight, or insult.
    • Such behavior is an affront to society.
    • This day, thou ſhalt haue ingots : and, to morrow, / Giue lords th’ affront. - 1610, Ben Jonson, “The Alchemist”, in The Workes of Beniamin Ionson, London: Will Stansby, published 1616, act II, scene ii, page 620:

    Antonyms: honor tribute

  2. A hostile encounter or meeting.

Origin

From Middle English afrounten, from Old French afronter (“to hit in the face; to defy”), from Vulgar Latin *affrontare (“to hit in the face”), from Latin ad (“to”) + frōns (“forehead”) (English front). By surface analysis, af- + front.

Forms

affronts

Related

effrontery

Verb

  1. To insult intentionally, especially openly.
    • But beſides, that ſuch a thought was inconſiſtent with the gravity of a Senate, how can one imagine that the Fathers would have dared affront the Wife of Aurelius, and the Mother of Commodus, or that they could think of...
  2. To meet defiantly; to confront.
    • to affront death
    • Avignon was beginning to settle down for the night – that long painful stretch of time which must somehow be affronted. - 1978, Lawrence Durrell, Livia (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 436:
  3. To meet or encounter face to face.
    • Many Iſlands there lie all over that ſea : but one above the reſt, and moſt renowned, is Tazata : for thither all the ſhipping from out of the Caſpian ſea and the Scythian Ocean, doe bend their courſe and there arrive :...
    • Sweet Gertrude leaue vs too, / For we haue cloſely ſent for Hamlet hither, / That he, as ’twere by accident, may there / Affront Ophelia. - c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet,...

Forms

affronts affronting affronted

Derived

affrontable affrontee affrontery affrontive affrontment