Definition of "contumelious"
contumelious
adjective
comparative more contumelious, superlative most contumelious
(archaic, literary) Rudely contemptuous; showing contumely; exhibiting an insolent or disdainful attitude.
Quotations
VVith ſcoffs and ſcornes, and contumelious taunts, / In open Market-place produc't they me, / To be a publique ſpectacle to all: / Here, ſayd they, is the Terror of the French, / The Scar-Crovv that affrights our Children ſo.
1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene vi], page 100, column 1
Such, and more contumelious, was the language of opposition in parliament, and of the pretended patriots in their private meetings, during the whole administration of sir Robert Walpole, who understood and pursued the true interests of his country, but, perhaps, without sufficiently attending to its honour.
1784, William Russell, The History of Modern Europe, in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to His Son, new edition, volume 5, published 1822, page 104
The pad would not stay on Modestine’s back for half a moment. I returned it to its maker, with whom I had so contumelious a passage that the street outside was crowded from wall to wall with gossips looking on and listening.
1879, Robert Louis Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes, 1st American edition, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers