traduce

American  

[truh-doos, -dyoos] / trəˈdus, -ˈdjus /

verb (used with object)

• traduces,
  present (3rd person singular)
• traduced,
  past participle,  past
• traducing
  present participle

1. to speak maliciously and falsely of; slander; defame.

   to traduce someone's character.

   Synonyms:

   disparage, decry, vilify

   Antonyms:

   praise

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traduce British  

/ trəˈdjuːs /

verb

1. (tr) to speak badly of

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• traducement
  noun
• traducer
  noun
• traducible
  adjective
• untraduced
  adjective
• traducingly
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Participles

• traducing
  present
• traduced
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• traduce
  simple
• traduces
  simple
• have traduced
  perfect
• has traduced
  perfect
• am traducing
  progressive
• are traducing
  progressive
• is traducing
  progressive
• have been traducing
  perfect progressive
• has been traducing
  perfect progressive

Past

• traduced
  simple
• had traduced
  perfect
• was traducing
  progressive
• were traducing
  progressive
• had been traducing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will traduce
  simple
• will have traduced
  perfect
• will be traducing
  progressive
• will have been traducing
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of traduce

1525–35; < Latin trādūcere, variant of trānsdūcere to transfer, display, expose, equivalent to trāns- trans- + dūcere to lead

Explanation

To traduce is to badmouth someone or something. If you don't want people talking trash about you, then don't traduce them either — even if they started it. Among cabaret performers, there is long tradition of traducing other performers — though at its heart, it's really a way of showing affection. Showing love by being mean: such is the strange world of camp. Of course, in order to know that a person is being funny when they traduce another person, you usually have to know them both pretty well. So if you're not either very familiar or very funny, avoid traducing other people for laughs: they're likely to think that you meant all those nasty things.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

traduce traduces traduced traducing

Artificial-intelligence researchers rush to create it, even though computer-as-brain metaphors traduce the complexity of human biology, at least for now.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 15, 2026

“The government will in no way traduce or criticize the work of the committee who are doing exactly what Parliament has asked them to do.”

From Washington Times ● Jun. 12, 2023

Art for art’s sake recognized that if you subordinate art to an idea like “the greater good,” you traduce it.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 25, 2022

From this, the department began micromanaging institutions’ disciplinary practices in ways that traduce constitutional guarantees.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 7, 2018

“Mrs. Watson,” he said, “I’d like to in- traduce you to your long-lost son from Siam, His Royal Highness, Yul Watson!”

From "The Watsons Go to Birmingham" by Christopher Paul Curtis

But valuing a forest for that purpose traduces what forests are.

From New York Times ● May 16, 2017

He traduces these great reformers and the doctrines of his own church, and yet was soon after made a bishop!!!—Ed.

From Works of John Bunyan — Volume 02 by John Bunyan

A wife and mother cannot thus absolve her own soul; she simply disgraces and traduces her holiest work.

From Maids Wives and Bachelors by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

And next to him again is the beautiful, the accomplished, the witty, the fascinating, the tormenting, Lady Clarinda, who traduces herself to the said Captain by assertions which it would drive him crazy to believe.

From Crotchet Castle by Thomas Love Peacock

Holkar, for instance, unless common fame traduces him, has rather an itching for what Mr. Laing calls 'hard rupees.'

From Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin by Eighth Earl of Elgin James

Ms Forbes says she does not know if seeing a public figure like her being "absolutely traduced" for her views has made them braver or more fearful.

From BBC ● Jun. 11, 2023

Or because Hoan Ton-That, the ingenious co-founder of Clearview, had once, like Thiel, been traduced by Gawker?

From The Guardian ● Jan. 25, 2020

And there’s another value that’s being traduced here, one that Old Schoolers often uphold: hard work.

From The New Yorker ● Apr. 28, 2017

This is, after all, a regime that traduced all diplomatic norms by seizing the U.S.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2015

This is an understatement, for it was on account of his fidelity to his master that he was shamefully traduced, and so sent to jail.

From Training the Teacher by A. F. Schauffler

It’s an approach now so mainstream that it’s become an orthodoxy of its own; it’s difficult to think of a writer today, of any genre, who doesn’t congratulate herself for traducing artificial binaries.

From New York Times ● Jul. 7, 2020

Yale has been seduced by a $150 million “bells and whistles” student center into traducing the best of what it and Holloway have stood for.

From Salon ● Sep. 21, 2019

So, wonderfully, traducing Microsoft across the Internet helps Sony, and vice versa.

From Forbes ● Nov. 5, 2013

On the contrary, for the purposes of animating the stage she hasn't done enough traducing: this often sounds like cut-out book pages walking around the stage.

From The Guardian ● Oct. 2, 2010

The Federalists, on the other hand, united in traducing him—an assertion which may be gainsaid, but which can be abundantly proved by reference to the Federal newspapers and magazines of the day.

From Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. by Various