look down on

• look down upon

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look down on (third-person singular simple present looks down on, present participle looking down on, simple past and past participle looked down on)

1. (transitive, idiomatic) To regard or treat as inferior.
   • 2009 September 25, Michael Deacon, “Ross Noble: interview”, in Telegraph.co.uk:

     He remembers feeling that people looked down on him, and, ‘realising I was rubbish at academic stuff’, he decided he'd join a circus.

2. (transitive) To view from a vantage point.
   • 1948 March and April, “A Keypoint in an Intensive Service”, in Railway Magazine, page 115:

     High up on the viaduct, and approached by a spidery staircase from the street, it looks down on Southwark Cathedral.

3. (transitive, idiomatic) To view [people or events on Earth] from the vantage point of the afterlife (originally, Heaven)

   I get a feeling Kurt Cobain is looking down on Nickelback and wondering what alternative rock has become.

• look down one's nose (at)

• look up to

• look upon