Look up pejorative, derisive, derogatory, or dyslogistic in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Pejoratives are terms which have a negative connotation. Sometimes a term may begin as a pejorative word and eventually be adopted in a non-pejorative sense. Quaker, Yankee, Okie, Tory and Whig, Ham radio, Christian, Protestant, Methodist, Shaker, Unitarian, Sooner, and Liberal were originally slang insults^{[citation needed]} but came to be used as non-pejorative standard words^{[citation needed]}. In historical linguistics, this phenomenon is known as melioration, or amelioration, or semantic change. Sometimes a term is still considered as a pejorative word by some but not by others (e.g. "Squaw"). In other cases, some groups have attempted to "reclaim" formerly offensive words applied against them (reclaimed word). Ethnic slurs are one kind of category of pejorative.

[edit] See also

• Bully
• Dysphemism
• Ethnic slur
• Euphemism treadmill
• Hate speech
• Historical linguistics
• Hypocoristic, a pet name (antonym)
• Lists of disparaging terms for people
• List of ethnic slurs
• Pejorative suffix
• Spook
• Taboo
• Taunt

[edit] References

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