Pejorative
A pejorative (also term of abuse or derogatory term) is a word or grammatical form that connotes negativity and expresses contempt or distaste. A term can be regarded as pejorative in some social or cultural groups but not in others, e.g., hacker is a term used for computer criminals as well as quick and clever computer experts. Sometimes a term may begin as a pejorative and eventually be adopted in a non-pejorative sense in some or all contexts, e.g., "punk" or "dude." In historical linguistics, this phenomenon is known as melioration, or amelioration, reclaiming, or semantic change.
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Famous quotes containing the word pejorative:
“And that is where
The pejorative sense of fear moves axles.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)