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

They also each serve the same purpose: to keep the public distant, confused, and grateful for whatever miserly scraps of information the justices deign to release to us.

From Slate ● Jul. 2, 2026

No, they’re hardworking people, others maintained, who’ve come for jobs no American would deign to do.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 19, 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

Mathematicians who don’t deign to communicate their subject to a wider audience are a little like multimillionaires who don’t contribute anything to charity.

From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos

His Ray always seems to be hiding behind a motorcycle visor even when he’s not and when he deigns to speak, the words trail off in a huff of exhaustion.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 5, 2026

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

Zorach’s sensitively rendered mother gazes toward her counterpart with an expression of concern, while the goddess, regally flicking a cape behind her nude body, deigns to look at no one.

From New York Times ● Jan. 20, 2022

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

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce have deigned to give us proof of their budding relationship: The couple was seen strolling, hand-in-hand, a couple of times in NYC over the weekend.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2023

Readers might assume there were only the two the article deigned to mention.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 4, 2022

When called upon to play the bear and carry off the maiden fair, he had been sullen and uncooperative, shuffling lifelessly through his paces when he deigned to take part in their mummery at all.

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

An interlude satirizing the stultifying fatuousness of the royal mission is followed by one that fawningly celebrates the magnificence of Diana deigning to speak to Welsh well-wishers.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 17, 2021

We need not, in the end, thank Hollywood, or American culture, for deigning to reflect some minuscule part of ourselves on TV, nor need we ask for more, or for better.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 18, 2020

In 2013, she made waves by appearing on the cover of the September issue of Vogue without deigning to give the customary interview that went with it.

From The Guardian ● Jun. 27, 2016

She was the queen of the Hollows, and here she was deigning to waste a few of her precious words on me, a kid from Valedale?

From "Burning Blue" by Paul Griffin