What Does Belittle Mean?

Belittle means to emotionally bully someone and knock their self esteem.  Belittling someone is a horrid and unfair thing to do and usually makes the victem feel sad or frustrated.  The best thing to do if someone tries to belittle you is ignore this and do not let it bother you-they are not worth it.  Don't let yourself be upset by it.

The term belittle is typically used as a transitive verb meaning representing or even speaking of as unkindly small or unimportant. It may be used as a synonym for the term 'disparage'. This can be done with a lot of contempt. It could also be used to mean causing to seem less than some other person/thing or little. In this sense of the term it is similar in meaning to the word decry.

In other words, the term belittle could simply be used to mean 'an expression of a negative opinion of'. Other similar words would include the terms denigrate, derogate, minimize, disparage, pick at and diminish.

The noun form of the word belittle is the term belittlement or belittler.