despect
/dɪˈspɛkt/
"despect" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“despect” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 7
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Contempt, derision.
Corpus desk
Index EN-despect · despect · English
despect · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "D" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | despect |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /dɪˈspɛkt/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “despect” in English
Rare enough to double-check
despect is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /dɪˈspɛkt/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Contempt, derision.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for despect, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English despect (“contempt, spite”), from Latin dēspectus (“a looking down upon, contempt”), from dēspicere (“to look down upon, despise, scorn”), from dē (“down”) + specere (“to look at, behold”), equivalent to de- + -spect. The correct English form is despect, spelled D-E-S-P-E-C-T.
Definition
- 1Contempt, derision.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how despect appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
In 488 A.D. the then very young, energetic, clever and deceitful king Kavadh succeeded to the throne. The rule was actually in the hands of the most powerful nobleman, Sokhra of the Karen family, who had won fame in the war against the Huns. Sokhra treated the young king with despect as a boy. The king's anger over Sokhra's treatment of him was exploited…
The majority of the most famous botanists of the 17th century raised their eyebrows in despect of this hypothesis of sex in plants as a new chimera and a ridiculous mental abortion of some persons who wanted to impress and delude the learned world.
Etymology
From Middle English despect (“contempt, spite”), from Latin dēspectus (“a looking down upon, contempt”), from dēspicere (“to look down upon, despise, scorn”), from dē (“down”) + specere (“to look at, behold”), equivalent to de- + -spect.
Antonyms
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.