In everyday Italian, disprezzabili is used to label actions, attitudes or people that are worthy of contempt or disdain. Typical contexts include moral judgments (“quelli che si vantano delle loro atrocità sono disprezzabili”), political criticism (“gli appelli pubblici dell’ultima amministrazione sono stati disprezzabili”), or literary criticism (“i personaggi servili del romanzo risultano disprezzabili per la loro mancanza d’onestà”). It can also appear in comparative or superlative forms, such as “più disprezzabili” or “il più disprezzabile”.
The term carries a strong negative connotation, but it is considered less explicit than alternatives such as “disprezzabili” ripetitively or “biancherie” in more colloquial speech. Synonyms in Italian include “opprimenti”, “revanchisti”, “irriverenti”, or “degenerati”, though these may differ slightly in nuance. In other languages, the closest equivalents would be “despicable”, “contemptible” or “vilified”, depending on context.
The word appears frequently in literary works, legal documents, and media commentary, often to underscore a moral condemnation. Notably, it has been featured in authors such as Luigi Pirandello’s dramatic descriptions, where the moral fabric of society is critiqued through a stream of disprezzabili character depictions. In legal texts, disprezzabili may describe conduct that is at a level of gross negligence, especially in codes that emphasize the importance of public morals. The cultural perception of the word is that it evokes a strong sense of moral outrage and serves as a mechanism for social ostracism.
The plural form disprezzabili can also refer to a group of people or actions; the singular form is disprezzabile. The adjective inflects for gender and number: disprezzabile (masc. sing.), disprezzabile (fem. sing.), disprezzabili (pl.). It is employed across various registers, ranging from formal legal or journalistic prose to literary drama.