look down on
verb1
Idiomatic To regard or treat as inferior.
- He remembers feeling that people looked down on him, and, ‘realising I was rubbish at academic stuff’, he decided he'd join a circus.2009 September 25, Michael Deacon, “Ross Noble: interview”, in Telegraph.co.uk:
2
To view from a vantage point.
- High up on the viaduct, and approached by a spidery staircase from the street, it looks down on Southwark Cathedral.1948 March and April, “A Keypoint in an Intensive Service”, in Railway Magazine, page 115:
3
Idiomatic To view [people or events on Earth] from the vantage point of the afterlife (originally, Heaven).
- I get a feeling Kurt Cobain is looking down on Nickelback and wondering what alternative rock has become.
- Related terms
- look upon