vilification

[ vil-uh-fi-key-shuhn ]

noun

1. the act of defaming or speaking ill of someone or something:

   Senior bishops are prepared to atone for the vilification their predecessors heaped on Darwin in the 1860s, when he put forward his theory of evolution.

Word History and Origins

Origin of vilification¹

First recorded in 1600–10; equivalent to vili(fy) ( def ) + -fication ( def )

Example Sentences

After decades of prohibition and vilification, they are increasingly being employed as therapeutics.

From MIT Technology Review

We have moved from worship to skepticism to outright vilification of this country’s creators.

From Time

These groups represent the immune systems of our communities actively fighting against the pathologies of hate and vilification and working to grow and mobilize the moderate middle.

From Time

He was honored and condemned, respected and despised—yet, for all the vilification, he was a patriot who for better or worse, built the FBI into a professional crime-fighting organization unmatched anywhere in the world.

From Time

In point of fact, the mass vilification of the league, which peaked a month ago, burned out as quickly as it ignited.

From The Daily Beast

I wonder, too, whether The Feminine Mystique played into the emerging vilification of poor African-American women at the time.

From The Daily Beast

Instead, they have unleashed a storm of nit-picking and vilification.

From The Daily Beast

The good news for Canada is that these acts of vilification have been met with resounding criticism from political leaders.

From The Daily Beast

Matthew Dowd, a former strategist for George W. Bush, said the GOP “wants passion and wants the vilification of the president.”

From The Daily Beast

Foreigners who attempted personal vilification found him ready to meet them with their own weapons.

From Project Gutenberg

Evidently Milton can cull words of extreme disparagement and vilification as well as words of unapproachable poetic beauty.

From Project Gutenberg

Vilification tore at the other's lips, until friend and enemy marveled at what Steve took in silence.

From Project Gutenberg

So vile was their language and conduct that "comedy" came to signify abuse and vilification.

From Project Gutenberg

Campaigns of vilification, corruption and false pretence have lost their usefulness.

From Project Gutenberg