Feelings, more precisely

Entry thirty-two is o despeito, and an English reader already owns it twice over without knowing it. Behind both stands the Latin despectus, a looking down on somebody, from despicere — de-, down, and specere, to look. Old French made despit of it, and Middle English borrowed that as a noun meaning contempt, scorn, the wish to see somebody diminished. Two things then happened to it. The noun lost its opening syllable, as borrowed words in English often did, and what was left became « spite » — which is why « spite » and « despite » are one word and not two. And the phrase « in despite of », originally in contempt of, wore down into the flat preposition « despite ». Portuguese kept the whole thing in one place. O despeito is still the feeling, the sting of a slight that makes somebody slam a door, and a despeito de is still the preposition, sitting exactly where « in spite of » sits. One word, two English descendants, and the older of the two is the one that still hurts.