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Scornful

Mood
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Scornful conveys a mood of biting contempt, disdain, or mockery, typically expressed through caustic tone or dismissive diction.

Detailed Definition
Scornful mood in poetry conveys biting criticism through sharp diction, ironic tone, and dismissive imagery; it appears in satirical verse, feminist critiques, or political invective—like Pope or Plath—where the speaker’s contempt becomes a weapon, using wit and fury to expose hypocrisy, injustice, or folly, transforming personal outrage into public indictment.
Example
Example in poetry:
In “Daddy,” Sylvia Plath uses scornful Holocaust metaphors to confront oppression; In “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” the speaker’s self-mockery carries scornful irony; In “The Hollow Men,” T.S. Eliot presents scornful spiritual emptiness; Emily Dickinson’s “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” shows scornful rejection of public fame; In “If We Must Die,” Claude McKay scornfully defies cowardly oppressors; In “Still I Rise,” Maya Angelou’s tone includes scornful defiance (“Does my haughtiness offend you?”).
Additional Notes
Scornful mood expresses contempt or disdain; signaled by sharp diction, sarcastic tone, and dismissive imagery—e.g., satirical or feminist protest poems; related to defiant, fierce, and sardonic moods; useful for critiquing power or hypocrisy.
Also Known As
Contemptuous Derisive Disdainful Mocking Sarcastic sardonic
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