Mock vs Belittle - What's the difference?
mock | belittle |
An imitation, usually of lesser quality.
Mockery, the act of mocking.
* Bible, Proverbs xiv. 9
A practice exam set by an educating institution to prepare students for an important exam.
To mimic, to simulate.
* Shakespeare
* Shakespeare
To make fun of by mimicking, to taunt.
* Bible, 1 Kings xviii. 27
* Gray
To tantalise, and disappoint (the hopes of).
* Bible, Judges xvi. 13
* 1597 , William Shakespeare, Henry IV , Part II, Act V, Scene III:
* 1603 , William Shakespeare, Othello , Act III, Scene III:
* 1667 , John Milton, Paradise Lost :
* Milton
* 1765 , Benjamin Heath, A revisal of Shakespear's text , page 563 (a commentary on the "mocke the meate" line from Othello):
* 1812 , The Critical Review or, Annals of Literature , page 190:
Imitation, not genuine; fake.
To knowingly say that something is smaller or less important than it actually is.
* {{quote-book, year=2006
, author=Mark Steyn
, title=America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It
, chapter=9
, isbn=0895260786
, page=201
, passage=Under the rules as understood by the New York Times'', the West is free to mock and belittle''' its Judeo-Christian inheritance, and, likewise, the Muslim world is free to mock and ' belittle the West's Judeo-Christian inheritance.}}
As verbs the difference between mock and belittle
is that mock is to mimic, to simulate while belittle is to knowingly say that something is smaller or less important than it actually is.As a noun mock
is an imitation, usually of lesser quality.As an adjective mock
is imitation, not genuine; fake.mock
English
Alternative forms
* (l) (obsolete)Noun
(en noun)- (Crashaw)
- Fools make a mock at sin.
- He got a B in his History mock , but improved to an A in the exam.
Verb
(en verb)- To see the life as lively mocked' as ever / Still sleep ' mocked death.
- Mocking marriage with a dame of France.
- Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud.
- Let not ambition mock their useful toil.
- Thou hast mocked me, and told me lies.
- And with his spirit sadly I survive, / to mock the expectations of the world; / to frustrate prophecies, and to raze out / rotten opinion
- "It is the greene-ey'd Monster, which doth mocke / The meate it feeds on."
- Why do I overlive? / Why am I mocked with death, and lengthened out / to deathless pain?
- He will not / Mock us with his blest sight, then snatch him hence.
- ‘Mock’ certainly never signifies to loath. Its common signification is, to disappoint.
- The French revolution indeed is a prodigy which has mocked the expectations both of its friends and its foes. It has cruelly disappointed the fondest hopes of the first, nor has it observed that course which the last thought that it would have pursued.