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

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

And when she does deign to talk policy, she phones it in.

From Slate ● Feb. 28, 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

Beginning the documentary's in the thick of that wreckage establishes its slant, which you can be certain Musk will point out if he deigns to comment on it at all.

From Salon ● May 20, 2022

But in “The Power Notebooks,” she deigns to give them a try.

From New York Times ● Feb. 26, 2020

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

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

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

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

Later, his photography business would employ as many as 50 people, Nadar only deigning to go behind the camera for celebrities and friends.

From Washington Post ● Jul. 19, 2017

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