The phrase "a certain contempt" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe a specific, often understated, feeling of disdain or disrespect towards someone or something.
Example: "His remarks were delivered with a certain contempt that made it clear he held little regard for the subject matter."
Alternatives: "a degree of disdain" or "a measure of scorn."
It's hard not to feel a certain contempt for Standard & Poor's in the wake of its downgrade of American debt.
What may lie at the heart of the tragedy, though, appears to have been a certain contempt.
Islamic and Jewish Aristotelians regarded kalām theologians (called the mutakallimūn) with a certain contempt, holding them to be mere apologists and indifferent to the philosophical question of truth.
He feels a certain contempt for his middle-class Jewish parents, especially his father, who is always displaying his "happy marriage".
But political party matters much less in this district, where many voters acknowledge that familiarity with politicians breeds a certain contempt.
He has shown a certain contempt for the rule of law and for...modern democratic institutions, such as the Supreme Court, the independent central bank and the electoral authority" ("Change, please", July 1st).
It seems that everyone gets it nowadays and I was suspicious that it had become a catchall to provide exculpation from the past.… I had always felt a certain disdain, bordering on contempt, for the particularly American reliance on therapy and counselling.
There has been a certain surprising contempt in outside commentators' reaction to the relatively poor showing of the Social Democrats.
I do have a certain amused contempt for the number of people who walk sideways into the thing and act like they were there all along.
You can see how a lifetime in that milieu could have instilled in Trump a certain knowing contempt for free markets, and for principled thinking about economic issues.
In the bars he'd frequented as a cowboy hotshot, the elite stance involved a certain relaxed contempt for the flesh.
