spurn

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English spurnen, also spornen,^[2][1] inherited from Old English spurnan, also spornan,^[3][4][5] a strong verb less frequent in Old English than its compound ætspurnan.^[4] It comes from Proto-Germanic *spurnaną (“to tread, kick”),^[1][6][7] and is cognate with Old Frisian spurna, Old Saxon spurnan, Old High German spurnan, and Old Norse sporna, spyrna and sperna.^[7][4][6] Outside Germanic it is related to Latin spernō (“to reject, scorn”),^[8][7][9] Ancient Greek ἀσπαίρω (aspaírō, “to pant, struggle”)^[8] and Lithuanian spirti (“to kick”),^[7][9] and Klein adds Ancient Greek σφυρόν (sphurón, “ankle”).^[9] Kroonen reconstructs a zero-grade nasal present of Proto-Indo-European *sperH-,^[6][1] a root that Etymonline gives as *spere- (“ankle”) and Klein and Barnhart as *sp(h)er- (“to move convulsively, jerk”).^[10][9][7] The OED thinks that the stem is probably that of spur.^[4] Weekley suggested that the sense "disdain" may owe something to Anglo-Norman esperner (“to reject”).^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

To strike with the foot, about 1000:^[7] the OED and Bosworth–Toller quote the Old English psalter, Ðe læs ðú on stán fóte spurne, lest you strike your foot on a stone.^[4][3] Old English also has the sense "reject": an Old English homily speaks of a girl ðe hine spearn mid wordum, who spurned him with words.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Both the kick and the rejection go back to Old English,^[3][10][5] although Barnhart's first Middle English record of it is only before 1382, in the Wycliffe Bible.^[7] In Middle English the physical senses were still strong: to stumble, as in the Ancrene Riwle,^[7][3] and to kick or trample, in Chaucer and Gower.^[4] From 1526 the verb could also be used figuratively for kicking against something disliked or despised.^[4] Johnson (1755) still put "to kick; to strike or drive with the foot" first.^[12] The physical senses then faded: "to stumble" and "to kick at" are last recorded in 1741 and 1740,^[4] and treading on something survives mainly in literary use with a hint of scorn, as in Longfellow's "I spurn the solid Earth".^[5] The noun, recorded before 1300 for a kick,^[4] first means disdainful rejection in Shakespeare's Hamlet (1604), "the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes".^[4][7][12]

Timeline

• c. 1000 – to kick, to strike against with the foot; to reject.^[7][3]
• before 1300 – noun, a kick.^[4]
• before 1382 – to reject or despise, in the Wycliffe Bible.^[7]
• c. 1386 – transitive with adverbs, to kick away or down, in Chaucer.^[4]
• c. 1390 – noun, a trip or stumble (obsolete by 1600).^[4]
• 1390 – to trample or kick something, in Gower.^[4]
• 1526 – figurative, to kick against something despised.^[4]
• 1604 – noun, disdainful rejection, in Shakespeare's Hamlet.^[4][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To reject with contempt: She spurned every offer of help.^[13][5][14]
2. To show scorn for something, with at or against.^[14][4][5]
3. (literary) To strike or tread on with the foot: The colt spurned the turf and was gone.^[5][14][4]
4. (obsolete, Old English–1741) To stumble or trip.^[4][5][14]
5. (obsolete, c. 1400–1740) To kick, often with at.^[4][5][14]

Noun

1. Disdainful rejection, or an instance of it.^[4][14][5]
2. (archaic) A kick.^[13][14][4]
3. (obsolete, c. 1390–1600) A trip or stumble.^[4][5]

Word family

• spurner
• unspurned

Related words

• spur
• spoor

Usage notes

A noun spurn, recorded from 1553, has a separate source: it is a variant of spur, probably after this word.^[4][5] It has meant the main root of a tree, a slanting prop and, in mining, a small pillar of coal left to support the seam.^[4][14] As "large root of a tree" it was still used in Yorkshire, Cheshire, Lincolnshire, Warwickshire and Shropshire, and Durham used it for the toe of a horse's foot or shoe.^[15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
15. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)