discountenance

verb

1. (transitive)To have an unfavorable opinion of; to deprecate or disapprove of.

   “A town meeting was convened to discountenance riot.”

   “So far from friendship being an institution whose value is recognised and understood, it is at best scantily acknowledged, and is often actually discountenanced and misunderstood.”

   “Mr Macgregor stiffened at the word 'nigger', which is discountenanced in India.”

   “'Mrs' was a word somewhat discountenanced by the Party—you were supposed to call everyone 'comrade'—but with some women one used it instinctively.”

2. (transitive)To abash, embarrass or disconcert.

   “How would one look from his Majeſtick brow, / Seated as on the top of Vertues hill, / Diſcount'nance her deſpiſ'd, and put to rout / All her array, her female pride deject, / Or turn to reverent awe? […]”

   “The hermit was somewhat discountenanced by this observation.”

3. (transitive)To refuse countenance or support to; to discourage.

   “These were rejected by Parliament, which discountenanced the amalgamation of competing lines but gave broad approval in theory to end-on amalgamations.”

noun

1. (uncountable)Cold treatment; disapprobation.

   “Highly tenacious of preserving over the mind of Sir Aubrey an undisputed sway, Lady De Brooke had seen with great reluctance the ascendency his grand-daughters were acquiring, which she artfully hoped to repress by throwing discountenance on the visits of their father,[…]”