Sunday Word: Pejorative

[sallymn]

pejorative [< pi-jawr-uh-tiv, -jor-, pej-uh-rey-, pee-juh-]

noun:
a word or phrase that has negative connotations or that is intended to disparage or belittle
adjective:
having negative connotations, tending to disparage or belittle, depreciatory

Examples:

Pillsbury once employed 1,800 employees, including Richmond's father, John, and provided stable incomes for many Springfield workers, but in recent years it has turned into an eyesore and a pejorative, attracting squatters and "urban miners" looking to sell metal for scrap. (Steven Spearie, Moving Pillsbury Forward: Richmond, group set sights on next steps with property in hand, The State Journal-RegisterMarch 2022)

"This is extremely unfortunate and it is also dangerous for the country. Because instead of understanding what the struggling farmers are saying we cannot start using pejorative language for them," Gandhi told The Indian Express. (Liz Mathew, Demeaning language against farmers 'unfair and cruel': Varun Gandhi, The Wire, October 2021)

The prudish label has been stuck to Gen Z many times in recent years. Now there's the pejorative new Twitter term 'puriteen' - meaning 'an online child who... proactively demands people curtail behavior they interpret as sexually suggestive,' according to Urban Dictionary. (Maddie Holden, Gen Z Are 'Puriteens', But Not For The Reasons You Think, GQ, July 2021)

Origin:

"depreciative, disparaging, giving a low or bad sense to," 1888, from French péjoratif, from Late Latin peiorat-, past-participle stem of peiorare "make worse," from Latin peior "worse," perhaps originally "stumbling," from PIE ped-yos-, suffixed (comparative) form of ped- "to walk, stumble, impair," from root ped- "foot." As a noun, "a word that depreciates the sense," from 1882. English had a verb pejorate "to worsen" from 1640s. (Online Etymology Dictionary)

"If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." Parents have given that good advice for years, but unfortunately many people haven't heeded it. The word pejorative makes it clear that both English and Latin speakers have long known that disparaging words can make a bad situation worse. Pejorative derives from the Late Latin adjective pējōrātus, which in turn comes from the Latin verb pējōrāre, meaning "to make or become worse." Although pejorative words have probably always been part of English, the adjective pejorative has only been found in English texts since the late 1880s. Before then, English speakers could rely on older synonyms of pejorative such as derogatory and uncomplimentary to describe disparaging words. (Merriam-Webster)