English

Noun

contemner ‎(plural contemners)

1. One who contemns, who displays contempt towards another.
   • ante 1588: Thomas Cartwright (probably), A Reproofe of Certeine Schismatical Persons, in Cartwrightiana (1951; edited by Albert Peel and Leland Henry Carlson), page 244 (George Allen & Unwin Ltd., Routledge; ISBN 0415319889, 0415319897)

     Præsumptuous violators or contemners of the sabbath or holie exercises /.

   • 1861 November, Julia Ward Howe, “Battle Hymn of the Republic”, in The Atlantic Monthly, Volume IX, Number LII (February 1862), page 10:

     I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel: / “As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal; / […] ”

   • 1880 December, Henry James, “The Portrait of a Lady”, Chapter VIII, in The Atlantic Monthly, Volume XLVI, Number CCLXXVIII, page 752:

     From all of which Isabel gathered that Lord Warburton was a nobleman of the newest pattern, a reformer, a radical, a contemner of ancient ways.