Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Spurn

Spurn (spûrn), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Spurned; p. pr. & vb. n. Spurning.] [OE. spurnen to kick against, to stumble over, AS. spurnan to kick, offend; akin to spura spur, OS. & OHG. spurnan to kick, Icel. spyrna, L. spernere to despise, Skr. sphur to jerk, to push. √171. See Spur.] 1. To drive back or away, as with the foot; to kick.

[The bird] with his foot will spurn adown his cup. Chaucer.

I spurn thee like a cur out of my way. Shak.

2. To reject with disdain; to scorn to receive or accept; to treat with contempt.

What safe and nicely I might well delay By rule of knighthood, I disdain and spurn. Shak.

Domestics will pay a more cheerful service when they find themselves not spurned because fortune has laid them at their master's feet. Locke.

Spurn, v. i. 1. To kick or toss up the heels.

The miller spurned at a stone. Chaucer.

The drunken chairman in the kennel spurns. Gay.

2. To manifest disdain in rejecting anything; to make contemptuous opposition or resistance.

Nay, more, to spurn at your most royal image. Shak.

Spurn, n. 1. A kick; a blow with the foot. [R.]

What defence can properly be used in such a despicable encounter as this but either the slap or the spurn? Milton.

2. Disdainful rejection; contemptuous tratment.

The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes. Shak.

3. (Mining) A body of coal left to sustain an overhanding mass.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.