Learn English – Does “peer down on somebody” include the meaning of contempt

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Does "to peer down on somebody" mean "to look at somebody with contempt, as if you think you are better"?

The context is this:

The sculptures peer down on visitors to America's Supreme Court.

Best Answer

No, it does not. The meaning is literal (well, not truly literal—statues are inanimate—but literal given the anthropomorphizing of the statues). It means the statues are physically higher than the visitors, and they are looking ("peering") at the visitors, so by necessity they must be looking in a downward direction.

The phrases "to look down on someone" and especially "to look down one's nose at someone" can carry a connotation of self-imagined superiority. "Peer down" does not have that connotation.

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