esteem

• æsteem (archaic)
• esteeme (obsolete)

First at end of 16th century; borrowed from Middle French estimer, from Latin aestimō (“to value, rate, weigh, estimate”); see estimate and aim, an older word, partly a doublet of esteem.

• IPA^(key): /ɪˈstiːm/, /əˈstiːm/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -iːm

esteem (usually uncountable, plural esteems)

1. Favourable regard.

   We hold her in high esteem.

• self-esteem

esteem (third-person singular simple present esteems, present participle esteeming, simple past and past participle esteemed)

1. To set a high value on; to regard with respect or reverence.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, Job 36:19:

     Will he esteem thy riches?

   • 1847, Alfred Tennyson, “(please specify the page number, or |part=Prologue, I to VII, or conclusion)”, in The Princess: A Medley, London: Edward Moxon, […], OCLC 2024748:

     You talk kindlier: we esteem you for it.

2. To regard something as valuable; to prize.
3. To look upon something in a particular way.

   Mary is an esteemed member of the community.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, Deuteronomy 32:15:

     Then he forsook God, which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.

   • 1535, Edmund Bonner, De vera obedientia by Stephen Gardiner (Preface)

     Thou shouldest (gentle reader) esteem his censure and authority to be of the more weighty credence.

   • 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, chapter 9, in The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, OCLC 223202227:

     Famous men, whose scientific attainments were esteemed hardly less than supernatural.

   • 1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “ch. V, The English”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, OCLC 191225086, book III (The Modern Worker):

     And greatly do I respect the solid character, — a blockhead, thou wilt say; yes, but a well-conditioned blockhead, and the best-conditioned, — who esteems all ‘Customs once solemnly acknowledged’ to be ultimate, divine, and the rule for a man to walk by, nothing doubting, not inquiring farther.

4. (obsolete) To judge; to estimate; to appraise

   The Earth, which I esteem unable to reflect the rays of the Sun.

• (to regard with respect): respect, revere
• (to regard as valuable): cherish

• (to regard with respect): contemn, despise
• (to regard as valuable): scorn, slight

• “esteem”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989, →ISBN.

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

• Mestee, mestee