detest

From Middle French detester, from Latin detestari (“to imprecate evil while calling the gods to witness", "denounce", "hate intensely”), from de- + testari (“to testify, bear witness”), from testis (“a witness”); see test, testify.

• IPA^(key): /dɪˈtɛst/

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• Rhymes: -ɛst
• Hyphenation: de‧test

detest (third-person singular simple present detests, present participle detesting, simple past and past participle detested)

1. (transitive) To dislike (someone or something) intensely; to loathe.

   I detest snakes.

   • 1715–1720, Homer; [Alexander] Pope, transl., “Book IX”, in The Iliad of Homer, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintott […], OCLC 670734254:

     Who dares think one thing, and another tell, / My heart detests him as the gates of hell.

   • 1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, OCLC 1023879857, page 171:

     Nurse Cramer had a cute nose and a radiant, blooming complexion dotted with fetching sprays of adorable freckles that Yossarian detested.

2. (transitive, obsolete) To witness against; to denounce; to condemn.
   • 1655, Thomas Fuller, James Nichols, editor, The Church History of Britain, […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), new edition, London: […] [James Nichols] for Thomas Tegg and Son, […], published 1837, OCLC 913056315:

     The heresy of Nestorius […] was detested in the Eastern churches.

   • 1545, John Bale, The Image of Both Churches

     God hath detested them with his own mouth.

• This is a catenative verb that takes the gerund (-ing). See Appendix:English catenative verbs

• See also Thesaurus:hate

• detestable
• detestation

• abhor
• despise
• disdain
• dislike
• hate
• loathe

• detest in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• detest in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911

• dettes, setted, tested