backbite
Americanverb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Conjugated Forms
Present
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has backbitperfect 3rd person singular
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have backbittenperfect
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has backbittenperfect 3rd person singular
-
have backbitperfect
-
has been backbitingperfect progressive 3rd person singular
-
have been backbitingperfect progressive
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backbitingparticiple
-
is backbitingprogressive 3rd person singular
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backbitessingular 3rd person
-
are backbitingprogressive
-
am backbitingprogressive 1st person singular
Past
-
had backbittenperfect
-
had backbitperfect
-
had been backbitingperfect progressive
-
backbitsimple
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backbitparticiple
-
was backbitingprogressive singular
-
backbittenparticiple
-
were backbitingprogressive plural
Future
Etymology
Origin of backbite
Middle English word dating back to 1125–75; see origin at back 1, bite
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.
Characters backbite, bellyache, reluctantly pitch in and commit mundane acts of heroism in a largely believable manner, and there’s blessedly little inspirational speechmaking.
From New York Times • Sep. 11, 2022
Diana could spin one delicious backbite like that into a column.
From Time Magazine Archive
Wherefore, properly speaking, to backbite is to speak ill of an absent person in order to blacken his good name.
From Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province by Thomas, Aquinas, Saint
The practice of letters is miserably harassing to the mind; and after an hour or two's work, all the more human portion of the author is extinct; he will bully, backbite, and speak daggers.
From Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers by Stevenson, Robert Louis
All this while Michelangelo's enemies, headed by Nanni di Baccio Bigio, continued to calumniate and backbite.
From The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti by Symonds, John Addington
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.
