calumniate
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of calumniate
1545–55; < Latin calumniātus (past participle of calumniārī to accuse falsely, trick), equivalent to calumni ( a ) calumny + -ātus -ate 1
Explanation
To calumniate is to make a false accusation against someone or spread lies about how awful they are. Don’t calumniate your rival in the race for class president, because when the truth comes out, you’ll be the bad guy. The courts would say to calumniate is to slander. Everyone else would just say it’s mean. Calumniate is just a fancier way of saying “lie” — but specifically lying to tarnish someone's reputation. If your sister says you purposely broke a vase and you didn't, she calumniates you. If you get in trouble in class, you could calumniate to the principal about your teacher being a wretched mess — but the other students might speak up and prove you wrong.
Vocabulary lists containing calumniate
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"The Wife of Bath's Tale," Vocabulary from the narrative poem
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"The Wife of Bath's Tale" by Geoffrey Chaucer
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
He speaks to calumniate thinkers, and to warn the faithful against the discoveries of science.
From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 6 (of 12) Dresden Edition?Discussions by Robert Green Ingersoll
But he must not calumniate as he passes.
From From the Easy Chair, series 2 by George William Curtis
To tell lie about; to calumniate; to slander.
From Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (2nd 100 Pages) by Noah Webster
But I never could have believed that it would lead him to do anything so vile as to calumniate me so cruelly.
From Froth by Armando Palacio Vald?s
According to these principles, our doctors in their quarrels, injure, defame, calumniate, and asperse, and when they have the power, persecute and exterminate each other.
From Critical Examination of the Life of St. Paul by Peter Annet
I’m putting this politely: They have been calumniated and abused for centuries.
From New York Times ● Dec. 11, 2020
A good remedy against calumniation or slander: If you are calumniated or slandered to your very skin, to your very flesh, to your very bones, cast it back upon the false tongues.
From Washington Times ● Nov. 1, 2014
The imperial pair saw a calumniated saint in Rasputin; the people, in the words of a monarchist member of the Duma, saw "the beastly, drunken unclean face of a bald satyr from Tobolsk."
From Time Magazine Archive
He complained to me that they were grievously calumniated by the zealots of other persuasions, and charged with abominable principles and practices to which they were utter strangers.
From Franklin's Autobiography (Eclectic English Classics) by Benjamin Franklin
Here somebody whispered to him that the prisoner was his client, when he immediately continued: "But what great and good man ever lived who was not calumniated by many of his contemporaries?"
From Ever Heard This? Over Three Hundred Good Stories by F. W. Chambers
He went out more like Nixon, his accomplishments tainted by allegations of criminality, his circle of trust constricted by banishments, betrayals and arrests until it included few besides his temperamental wife and calumniating eldest son.
From New York Times ● Jun. 13, 2021
And after calumniating the greatest masterpieces, they dare couple their obscure names with those of our supreme masters .
From Time Magazine Archive
Adams read in the newspapers that Jefferson had compiled “a Magazine of slips of newspapers, and pamphlets, vilifying, calumniating and defaming you.”
From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis
I have heard of cases of unjust warfare but my informants were enemies of the parties against whom they complained and most probably were calumniating them.
From The Manóbos of Mindanáo Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir by John M. Garvan
To these calumniating charges it was admitted on all sides that Smith, himself, was giving some color of truth.
From The Real Man by Francis Lynde
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
