Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A strong dislike; an aversion.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A feeling of nausea, disgust, or abhorrence; a loathing; a fantastic prejudice.
  • To be or become nauseated; feel disgust, loathing, repugnance, or abhorrence.
  • To shrink back with disgust or strong repugnance: generally with at before the object of dislike.
  • To affect with nausea, loathing, or disgust; nauseate.

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

  • transitive verb Scot. & Prov. Eng. To cause to loathe, or feel disgust at.
  • intransitive verb Scot. & Prov. Eng. To have a feeling of loathing or disgust; hence, to have dislike, prejudice, or reluctance.
  • noun Scot. & Prov. Eng. A feeling of disgust or loathing; a strong prejudice; abhorrence.

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

  • verb To be sick of.
  • verb Northumbrian To dislike.
  • noun Northumbrian Dislike or aversion.
  • noun Yorkshire, pejorative North Yorkshire term for an urban youth and usually associated with trouble or petty crime.

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

  • noun a strong dislike

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Middle English skunner, to shrink back in disgust, from scurnen, to flinch.]

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Examples

  • For some reason Field had taken what the Scotch call a scunner to ex-President Hayes, whom he regarded as a political Pecksniff.

    Eugene Field A Study In Heredity And Contradictions Thompson, Slason 1901

  • Where a disgust, or, as the Scotch call it, a "scunner," is taken at any food, especially with children, they should never be forced to eat it.

    Papers on Health John Kirk

  • Scotch milliner across the road took what she called a "scunner" at the silk and muslin flowers, with their odious starchy, stuffy smell, and wondered where the farmer was, who two years ago had asked her to marry him.

    Purple Springs 1921

  • a kind of "scunner" at this poor old hotel of magnificent distances and the lingering, doddering, unwashed old men who acted as chambermaids.

    A Tramp's Notebook Morley Roberts 1899

  • 'kings of finance' -- then I suddenly took a 'scunner' as we Scots say, at the whole lot, and hated and despised myself for ever so much as thinking that it might serve my own ends to become their tool.

    The Treasure of Heaven A Romance of Riches Marie Corelli 1889

  • With sound cutting out and shrieking feedback, the actors soldiered on, and it didn't ruin the performance, but it was a right scunner, cause that matinee show was kicking arse up till that moment.

    Archive 2010-06-01 Hal Duncan 2010

  • With sound cutting out and shrieking feedback, the actors soldiered on, and it didn't ruin the performance, but it was a right scunner, cause that matinee show was kicking arse up till that moment.

    Adventures of a Couch-Hopping Scribbler Part 2: That Toddlin Town Hal Duncan 2010

  • And Miss Lucy Ashton, that grudged when an honest woman came near her — a taid may sit on her coffin that day, and she can never scunner when he croaks.

    The Bride of Lammermoor 2008

  • I thought she seemed to gie a scunner at the eggs and bacon that Nurse Simson spoke about to her.

    The Surgeon's Daughter 2008

  • And, none of us expect him to be loving -- she has a massive blind spot for the wee scunner -- but man, is he ungracious.

    The WritingYA Weblog: TBR3: A Tale of Two Cities - Wheels Within Wheels tanita davis 2008

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