insolence

From Middle French insolence, from Latin īnsolentia.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɪn.sə.ləns/

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insolence (countable and uncountable, plural insolences)

1. Arrogant conduct; insulting, bold behaviour or attitude.
   • c. 1908–52, W.D. Ross, transl., The Works of Aristotle, Oxford: Clarendon Press, translation of Rhetoric, II.1389b11, by Aristotle, →OCLC, page 636:

     They are fond of fun and therefore witty, wit being well-bred insolence.

   • 1815 December (indicated as 1816), [Jane Austen], chapter 14, in Emma: […], volume III, London: […] [Charles Roworth and James Moyes] for John Murray, OCLC 1708336:

     all the insolence of imaginary superiority

   • 1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], OCLC 21345056, page 133:

     There she was, doing rude things, and saying ruder, which every body bore with the best grace in the world: then, as now, it was perfectly astonishing what people in general will submit to in the way of insolence, provided the said insolence be attended by rank and riches.

2. Insolent conduct or treatment; insult.
   • 1652, Thomas Fuller, The Holy State, and the Profane State‎, page 442:

     Two heavy iron chains were put about his neck, (in metal and weight different from them he bore before!) and, loaded with fetters and insolences from the soldiers, (who in such ware seldom give scant measure,) he was brought into the presence of Isaacius.

3. (obsolete) The quality of being unusual or novel.
   • 1595, Ed. Spencer [i.e., Edmund Spenser], “Colin Clouts Come Home Againe”, in Colin Clouts Come Home Againe, London: […] T[homas] C[reede] for William Ponsonbie, OCLC 1125540005:

     Her great excellence / Lifts me above the measure of my might / That being fild with furious insolence / I feele my selfe like one yrapt in spright.

• insolency

insolence (third-person singular simple present insolences, present participle insolencing, simple past and past participle insolenced)

1. (obsolete) To insult.
   • 1851, Church Wardens of Burlington, “The Church Wardens &c. of Burlington to the Honourable Society. Burlington, 28th, 1715”, in Collections of the Protestant Episcopal Historical Society, volume 1, OCLC 7847099, page 76:

     ...we are bound to assert that we never heard either in his public discourses or private conversation, anything that might tend towards encouraging sedition, or anyways insolencing the government

   • 1648, attributed to Charles I of England, Εἰκὼν Βασιλική [Eikōn Basilikē = Royal Portrait]. The Pourtraicture of His Sacred Maiestie, in His Solitvdes and Svfferings:

     bishops, who were first foully insolenced and assaulted.

• incensole, selenonic

From Latin īnsolentia.

• IPA^(key): /ɛ̃.sɔ.lɑ̃s/

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insolence f (plural insolences)

1. insolence

• insolent

• “insolence”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.