Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Alienation of affection, attachment, or good will; estrangement; or, more generally, positive enmity, dislike, or hostility; disloyalty: as, the disaffection of a people to their prince or government; the disaffection of allies; disaffection to religion.
  • noun In a physical sense, disorder; constitutional defect.
  • noun Synonyms Dissatisfaction, ill will, hostility, disloyalty.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun State of being disaffected; alienation or want of affection or good will, esp. toward those in authority; unfriendliness; dislike.
  • noun rare Disorder; bad constitution.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Discontent; unrest.
  • noun Alienation; loss of loyalty.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the feeling of being alienated from other people
  • noun disloyalty to the government or to established authority

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From disaffect + -ion.

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Examples

  • As the British people are made ever more aware of the impotence of our Parliament and Government to produce solutions appropriate to them (and desired by them) rather than to the goat farmers of Cyprus, because of the extent to which it has handed power over, lock, stock and barrel to the EU, then will come a time of growing disaffection from the European racket.

    Legitimacy Is The Treaty's Achilles Heel 2008

  • As the British people are made ever more aware of the impotence of our Parliament and Government to produce solutions appropriate to them (and desired by them) rather than to the goat farmers of Cyprus, because of the extent to which it has handed power over, lock, stock and barrel to the EU, then will come a time of growing disaffection from the European racket.

    Archive 2008-01-13 2008

  • Case in point: Openly anxious about grass-roots disaffection from the Republican Party, conservative Christian organizers are reaching for ways to turn out voters this November, including arguing that recognizing same-sex marriage could also limit religious freedom.

    September 2006 2006

  • It has even been stated that the word disaffection was uttered during this secret conference by the sincere and truthful lips of M. de Saint-Aignan.

    Complete Project Gutenberg Collection of Memoirs of Napoleon Various

  • You may well have a point about Lib Dem voters staying away, but what neither you nor anyone else can prove is whether it was a one-off punishment or a sign of a long-term disaffection.

    The Independent - Frontpage RSS Feed 2011

  • This social unrest was compounded by the evangelical revival, which although it later became a conservative force that protected Britain from radical political change, was at this point profoundly disturbing as it uncovered and stimulated disaffection from the Established Church.

    _The Sceptic_: A Poem For Its Time? 1820

  • It has even been stated that the word disaffection was uttered during this secret conference by the sincere and truthful lips of M. de Saint-Aignan.

    Recollections of the Private Life of Napoleon — Complete Louis Constant Wairy 1811

  • "However, the benefits of the QPRIME system into the future far outweigh short-term disaffection by some officers," the spokesperson said.

    Australian Politics 2008

  • I being in such a position in the colony, and considering the fact that Madam Cavendish and Catherine were staunch loyalists, and would have sent all their tobacco to the bottom of the salt sea had the king so ordained, and regarded all disaffection from the royal will as a deadly sin against God and the Church, as well as the throne, and knowing the danger which Mary Cavendish ran, I was in a sore quandary.

    The Heart's Highway: A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century 1900

  • This disaffection is partly due to the video invasion, or to the bureaucratization of channels who’ve become less and less creative, but that’s not the main thing.

    Ballardian » ‘Le passé composé de J. G. Ballard’: JGB on Empire of the Sun 2009

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