deign

While I would never deign to speak for all critics — I’ve been around enough to know I don’t need that smoke — we’re not generally fans of inscrutability.

From Salon ● Aug. 4, 2026

Still, when she does deign to speak, there’s a dynamite scene where she dresses down Julian critically and psychologically.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 9, 2026

And that brings down prices for every airline passenger—whether you deign to fly Spirit or not.

From Slate ● Oct. 15, 2024

Brown and black bears focus on the oily brains and nutritious roe of salmon when the fish are abundant and deign to chow down on whole fish only in years when salmon aren’t plentiful.

From Scientific American ● Apr. 11, 2023

Slynt did not deign to answer that, but he kicked the chair aside as he departed.

From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin

More than that, he also secured a prized meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a head of government who rarely deigns to trouble himself with mere foreign ministers.

From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2024

When Peter deigns to show up to the office, it’s to flagrantly show his refusal to work by playing Tetris or gutting a fish at his desk.

From Salon ● Mar. 1, 2024

It’s one of two cuts on “Honestly, Nevermind” where he deigns to rap, and it captures all his current interests, which apparently include skulking around DTLA’s after-hours raves.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 22, 2022

But the plant, and its dinner-plate-size flower, couldn’t care less about the glamorous guests and their desire for spectacle; it follows no timetable and deigns to open only at the time of its choosing.

From New York Times ● Oct. 11, 2021

Though Quin Veturius is seventy-seven years old, women blush when he looks them in the eye, and men wince when he deigns to shake their hands.

From "An Ember in the Ashes" by Sabaa Tahir

That applied to observers who deigned to take photographs of the case's famous players in the courthouse and lawyers who pushed their questions into territory the judge had previously made clear were off-limits.

From BBC ● May 15, 2026

Times were unimportant, however, as the racers who deigned to take to the Stelvio course finetuned their lines down the course in the kind of flat light that is also forecast for Saturday's medal race.

From Barron's ● Feb. 6, 2026

Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh have all issued rebukes to lower courts that deigned to question their reasoning.

From Salon ● Oct. 14, 2025

Chris Pine’s rep deigned to respond to the ‘ridiculous story’ that Harry Styles spit at Pine during ‘Don’t Worry Darling’s’ Venice debut.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2022

Neither deigned to look up from their game until Haldon drew up a chair between them and said, “My dwarf plays better cyvasse than both of you combined.”

From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin

The love of ambiguity can feel somewhat coy—Ms. Tokarczuk gestures toward the existence of occult mysteries without deigning to fully portray them.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 28, 2025

Before deigning to unveil his characters’ undeveloped souls, Bergman shows us the variety of masks they have been taught to adopt.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 23, 2021

Those abundant trees – and of all the creatures, deigning somehow to glance at me and the dogs with a corner-of-the-eye curiosity, though, like the cuckoo, they never quite show their eyes, their faces.

From The Guardian ● Jun. 13, 2020

The “communications” office specializes in stonewalling, often not even deigning to issue a “no comment.”

From Washington Post ● Jan. 2, 2019

He fussed over my condescension in deigning to learn anything about his country.

From "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin