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  1. Peter gave me a despising look.

  2. Peter gave me a despised look.

Are the two statements above the same?

My understanding is that in statement 1, I may have done something that Peter thinks is not good. So he looked down upon me. In statement 2, I may have done something to show that I looked down upon Peter. So he felt that he had been looked down upon.

Is my understanding correct?

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    Searching Google books, while "despising look" is relatively common, there are very, very few true hits for "despised look" (in most of them, despised is the end of one sentence and "Look" the start of the next). Many of them seem to mean "despising look". I wouldn't use "despised look".
    – Peter Shor
    May 31, 2014 at 0:01
  • Though your logic is sound, the adjective despised is generally not used in that sense. In fact, it's not much used in such a context at all.
    – Kris
    May 31, 2014 at 5:48

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In statement 1, I may have done something that Peter thinks is not good. So he looked down upon me.

That's a reasonable description.

In statement 2, I may have done something to show that I looked down upon Peter. So he felt that he had been looked down upon.

Not quite as firm. It could be that, but the connection to you is less firm.

Let's say Mary suddenly bursts on the scene, she's heard about what Peter did to Carol, and she berates him about it. Peter feels ashamed for what he did, and embarrassed that you are now witnessing this dressing down. He gives you a look that indicates he is feeling despised, though you yourself have had nothing to do with this, and don't even know who Mary and Carol are. This would also be a case of Peter giving you a despised look.

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  • Yes, yes. But only with a generous stretch of one's imagination. You know what I mean.
    – Kris
    May 31, 2014 at 5:51
  • ... and scare quotes.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    May 31, 2014 at 9:37
  • Even with the generous stretch of the imagination, I still can’t quite get that meaning out of the sentence. If Peter had some magical ability to get everyone to do what he wanted by hitting them with his utterly irresistible puppy-eyes, and everyone absolutely hated the fact that they couldn’t resist him, then I’d say you might have a reasonable use case. “Peter gave me one of those despised[/accursed/annoying] looks that he knows always makes everyone’s power of resistance melt away” works fine for me.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    May 31, 2014 at 9:52

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