familiarity breeds contempt
Repeated exposure to someone or something often creates a contentious relationship. A: "Those two teams have built up quite a rivalry over the years." B: "They play in the same division, and familiarity breeds contempt." I'm afraid it's true when they say that familiarity breeds contempt, because I've been stuck with Larry in the apartment all week, and I'm absolutely sick of him. Of course everyone in your family's annoyed with each other—they've been together on vacation for four days now, and familiarity breeds contempt.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
Familiarity breeds contempt.
Prov. People do not respect someone they know well enough to know his or her faults. The movie star doesn't let anyone get to know him, because he knows that familiarity breeds contempt.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
familiarity breeds contempt
Long experience of someone or something can make one so aware of the faults as to be scornful. For example, Ten years at the same job and now he hates it-familiarity breeds contempt. The idea is much older, but the first recorded use of this expression was in Chaucer's Tale of Melibee (c. 1386).
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
familiarity breeds contempt
If you say that familiarity breeds contempt, you mean that if you know someone or something very well, you can easily become bored with them and stop treating them with respect. Of course, it's often true that familiarity breeds contempt, that we're attracted to those who seem so different from those we know at home. It is second-year drivers — when familiarity breeds contempt for road rules — that are the problem. Note: Other nouns are sometimes used instead of contempt. Familiarity breeds inattention. Typically, family members are so convinced they know what another family member is going to say that they don't bother to listen.
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2012
familiarity breeds conˈtempt
(saying) you have little respect, liking, etc. for somebody/something that you know too well: George’s father is regarded by everyone as a great artist, but George doesn’t think he is. Familiarity breeds contempt!Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017
familiarity breeds contempt
Overexposure to or knowing something or someone too thoroughly can turn liking into hostility. The idea behind this expression dates from ancient times—the Roman writer Publilius Syrus used it about 43 b.c.—and approximately twelve hundred years later Pope Innocent III repeated it, also in Latin. The first record of it in English appeared in Nicholas Udall’s translation of Erasmus’s sayings (1548): “Familiaritye bringeth contempt.” Later writers often stated it with humor or irony, notably Mark Twain in his unpublished diaries (Notebooks, ca. 1900): “Familiarity breeds contempt—and children.”
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer Copyright © 2013 by Christine Ammer