SLIGHT (verb)

Slight

Verb

Pronunciation: slaIt

Etymology: from the adjective slight

Third-person singular simple present: she/he slights

Indicative past, past participle: slighted

Present participle: slighting.

Transitively:

First definition: to make (a surface) smooth or sleek; hence, to raze (a building, etc.); to level with the ground.

Postdefinition: these acceptations are obsolete or rare. The adjective slight was formerly used for smooth, sleek, and this is why this verb was originally meant for to smooth.

 

Unlike most earlier major rulers, Sargon was not content with mere paramountcy; he wanted real rulership over the whole land. To this end he slighted the walls of other cities to make any future resistance ineffective.

H. W. F. Saggs (Babylonians)

 

A vote […] in the house of commons to slight this castle.

Francis Grose (The antiquities of England and Wales)

 

[…] it was standard practice to slight the defenses once the site was left.

Edward Luttwak (The grand strategy of the Roman Empire)

 

Second definition: a. to treat (something ) as slight or of little worth b. to treat slightingly (an animated being); to think of as of little worth; to make light of

Postdefinition: the adjective slight was formerly used for of little worth, when it was a predicate to a person, and this is why this verb is synonymous with to despise (an animated being). The adjective slight is still used for of little worth, when it is a predicate to a thing.

Synonym: to undervalue, under-estimate, despise, disregard, disdain, ignore

Antonyms: to overvalue, admire, esteem, venerate, overestimate

It may be approximately translated by mésestimer, in French; subestimar, in Spanish; sottostimare, or disistimare, in Italian.

 

In plundering the houses, gold, silver, and jewels were alone attended to by the soldiery, other things though of value being slighted as cumbrous.

Robert Kerr (A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II)

 

We hear much of drudgery, but any sort of work that is slighted becomes drudgery; poetry, fiction, painting, sculpture, acting, architecture, if you do not do your best by them, turn to drudgery sore as digging ditches, hewing wood, or drawing water.

William Dean Howells (Literature and Life)

 

Their groans would be succeeded by gladness, and they would thank the legislators who had slighted their remonstrances.

Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435

 

[…] it began to be thoroughly well known, all over the world, that England was governed by a man in earnest, who would not allow the English name to be insulted or slighted anywhere.

Charles Dickens (A child’s history)

 

I wish I could close his history by saying that he lived a harmless life in the Castle and the Castle gardens at Kenilworth, many years—that he had a favourite, and plenty to eat and drink—and, having that, wanted nothing.  But he was shamefully humiliated.  He was outraged, and slighted, and had dirty water from ditches given him to shave with, and wept and said he would have clean warm water, and was altogether very miserable.

Charles Dickens (A child’s history)

 

He had studied astronomy among other things in school, but then it had been merely a hated task to be shirked and slighted and forgotten as one's palate forgets the taste of bitter medicine.

B. M. Bower (The Lookout Man)

 

You complained that she slighted your request to shun all acquaintance with Mr. Margrave. I was surprised that, whether your wish were reasonable or not, she could have hesitated to comply with it.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton (A Strange Story)

 

[…] she slighted his counsel.

Hester Lynch Piozzi (Portrait of Mrs. Piozzi)

 

The general, in return, sent the governor a present, consisting of red hats, short gowns, coral, brass basons, hawks bells and many other things, which he slighted as of no value, and asked why the general had not sent him scarlet, which he chiefly desired.

Robert Kerr (A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II)

 

Many relations of travellers have been slighted as fabulous, till more frequent voyages have confirmed their veracity.

Samuel Johnson (The Adventurer And Idler)

 

[…] he smiles, perhaps thinking of the champagne which Mr. Warrington had slighted.

William Makepeace Thackeray (The Newcomes)

 

In the patriarch’s scheme of education, the women -half the race- were slighted.

The People Journal, edited by John Saunders

 

[…] that which was slighted assumed the importance which belonged to it.

Joseph Adshead (a circumstantial narrative of the wreck… )

 

[Marie] slighted my accomplishments, undervalued my wealth, and preferred to me a poor neighbour, who had nothing to recommend him.

William Pickering (The bijou)

 

[…] as the narrative of his journey is still an excellent guide-book for modern travellers, his example is not to be slighted.

Richard Ford (Gatherings from Spain)

 

"I have a suspicion that our estimable kinsman, who seems to consider that what is good enough for Somasco should content anybody, might be offended if we slighted his hospitality, and that teapot apparently contains at least three pints of strong green tea

Harold Bindloss (Alton of Somasco)

 

They slighted his authority, opposed his measures, and neglected his counsels.

David Hume (The history of England)

 

[…] when she heard the articulation of her name in his enquiries, it was not because she slighted him, nor because she was enraptured with his love, that she a second time hastened from his presence.

Herman Mann (The Female Review)

 

I doubted not but his [… object] was to outbrave Agnes, and to revenge himself for her crossness, by showing her that he needed not be so much concerned for her, and although she slighted him, he could be well received by other girls, her equals at least.

Edmund Burke (The Annual register)

 

I doubted not but that he was an admirer of and suitor to the fair Ellen. Yet she slighted him; he was entirely indifferent to her: otherwise why did she often leave the drawing-room during his very long morning visits […]?

The republic of letters…, by A. Whitelaw

 

“Ay,” she cried; “I will make no secret of my shame. I was foolish enough to listen to him, and to believe that he loved me. But I soon found out that I had been  deceived, and bitterly repented my error. When the charms he feigned to perceive in me no longer pleased him, he slighted me, and at last, abandoned me altogether.

William Harrison Ainsworth (Mervyn Clitheroe)

 

***Rarely, with the adverb over, to reinforce the connotation of worthlessness, as if one were higher than something in position:

 

[…] I lodge a complaint before you as a magistrate, and you will find it serious to slight it over.

Walter Scott (Redgauntlet)

 

Read the petition once more, my friends, and you will find that nearly the whole of the important matters which it contained were entirely slighted over by Mr. Hobhouse.

Henry Hunt (To the Radical reformers… )

 

Other English vocables derived from the adjective slight: slight (adv.), slighted, slighten, slightening, slighter, slighting, slightingness, slightingly, slightish, slightly, slightness