Pejorative
Origin
Late Latin pejoratus, past participle of pejorare to make or become worse, from Latin pejor worse; akin to Sanskrit padyate he falls, Latin ped-, pes foot
Definition
- 1: having negative connotations; especially : tending to disparage or belittle
Description
A pejorative (also term of abuse or derogatory term) is a word or grammatical form that connotes negativity and expresses contempt or distaste. A term can be regarded as pejorative in some social or cultural groups but not in others, e.g., hacker is a term used for computer criminals as well as quick and clever computer experts. Sometimes, a term may begin as a pejorative and eventually be adopted in a non-pejorative sense in some or all contexts, e.g., "punk" or "dude". In historical linguistics, this phenomenon is known as melioration, or amelioration, reclaiming, or semantic change.
Name slurs can also involve an insulting or disparaging innuendo rather than being a direct derogatory remark. In some cases, a person's name can be redefined with an unpleasant or insulting meaning, or applied to a group of people considered to be inferior or lower in social class, as a group label with a disparaging meaning. Also, an ethnic slur or racial slur can be used as a pejorative to imply people of those groups are inferior or deficient.
