ignoble
/ɪɡˈnəʊb(ə)l
/adjective (ignobler, ignoblest)
1Not honourable in character or purpose: ignoble feelings of intense jealousy...
- But the elevated, even chivalric, tone in which it is being conducted scarcely even masks its onesided and ignoble purpose.
- The vicarious emotions that the accounts of the trial provoked range from the honourable, through the ignoble to the thoroughly perverse.
- For we recognize that the powers made possible by biomedical science can be used for non-therapeutic or ignoble purposes, serving ends that range from the frivolous and disquieting to the offensive and pernicious.
Synonyms
dishonourable, unworthy, base, shameful, contemptible, despicable, shabby, abject, low, sordid, degraded, corrupt, mean, wrong;
improper, unprincipled, unchivalrous, uncharitable, discreditable, blameworthy, reprehensible
2Of humble origin or social status.Yerby's characterization of Fancy is, therefore, ironic, emphasizing the ignoble origins of most Southerners....
- Travellers from Marco Polo onwards had created a rich and often fanciful literature depicting the lives of noble and ignoble savages in varying states of nature.
- All right, Tarzan has no black characters, not even servants, neither noble nor ignoble savages.
Derivatives
ignobility
/ noun ...- I took the Salon piece as an attempt to honestly portray an ignoble (not evil, but ignoble) side of human nature, without praising it and even while acknowledging its ignobility.
- But viewed from another perspective, the Swedes have written a new chapter in ignobility, presenting the world's top literary honor to an author who considers his own work irrelevant.
- It is almost an axiom that no man may make a career in politics in the Republic without stooping to such ignobility: it is as necessary as a loud voice.
ignobly
- Nonetheless, Jenkins underlines his subject's vulnerability well, interspersing nuggets from Lear and Prospero with tag lines from the fish-stick commercials Welles ignobly resorted to in his old age.
- April 1 marks their ignobly titled tin anniversary at the Rock, a 10-year innings that makes them one of the country's longest-running radio pairings.
- Or maybe I would fall in, ignobly, with the packs of Hollywood runaways I had seen profiled sensationally on television news magazines.
Origin
Late Middle English (in sense 2): from French, or from Latin ignobilis, from in- 'not' + gnobilis, older form of nobilis 'noble'.