1935–40; originally a curse, spell (the sense recorded in Gullah); compare Vai (Mande language of Liberia and Sierra Leone) dà nyà mà curse, literally, bad mouth
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Trying to get Pete Carroll to bad-mouth a former player of his is like trying to get an Auburn fan to yell “Roll Tide!”
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 24, 2023
Macchio also made the decision to never bad-mouth the Karate Kid films, even if he was frustrated with the direction his career had taken.
From BBC ● Nov. 24, 2022
“Some people bad-mouth America, but in reality, it’s a good country,” said Yoneha, who came to the U.S. from Okinawa on a whim 50 years ago.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 27, 2022
If this family of snobbish locals chooses to retaliate, they could bad-mouth his business, which relies strongly on good referrals and great reviews.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 2, 2022
Pa said, “I advise caution, Leroy. I ain’t trying to bad-mouth no one, but how much we really know ’bout Zephariah?
From "Elijah of Buxton" by Christopher Paul Curtis
“I don’t want to bad mouth him but he wanted to keep managing. He just couldn’t accept not being there. That’s just the way it was.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 24, 2025
"It's never a good idea to post publicly about your break-up, to bad mouth them," William says.
From BBC ● Feb. 14, 2023
I’m sure they’ll bad mouth me either way, but then I won’t care.
From Slate ● Sep. 5, 2017
Djokovic, for his part, refused to bad mouth the fans, which according to reports, also booed and jeered him during the three-hour, 20-minute match.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 14, 2015
They’d put the bad mouth on their aunt’s first American day; you had to sweeten their noisy barbarous mouths.
From "The Woman Warrior" by Maxine Hong Kingston
She also alleged that employees of the agency bad-mouthed NewJeans on internal communication app and asked a journalist to downplay the group's record sales in one article.
From BBC ● Nov. 20, 2024
On “The Howard Stern Show,” Chase said he later discovered that another “SNL” cast member, John Belushi, had bad-mouthed him to Murray before the encounter, laying the groundwork for their backstage brawl.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 22, 2022
Some of the detectives also contended Crenshaw pushed subordinates he didn’t like out of his unit and often bad-mouthed and pressured those who took vacation, sick leave or training days, detectives claimed.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 6, 2021
For years, T-Mobile’s chief executive, John Legere, has gleefully bad-mouthed his much larger mobile phone competitors, Verizon Wireless and AT&T, for their high prices and profit margins, and their low-quality service.
From New York Times ● Jun. 1, 2019
Realizing that he was up against two big, competent mice who would stand no nonsense, he became abusive and bad-mouthed.
From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques
“I think it’s now clear that it’s not just about bad-mouthing her in the press or manipulating judicial process to ensure she never gets paid, but something a lot more sinister,” Manasserian said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 4, 2026
Your boss may be bad-mouthing you to others.
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 28, 2026
Mere hours before her own debate with Trump, Biden called her and demanded to know if she’d been bad-mouthing him to donors.
From Salon ● Sep. 26, 2025
Referring to the audit, it added: "The FFF nevertheless notes that the report is based less on objective facts than on comments that have sometimes led to exaggerated bad-mouthing of the body."
From BBC ● Feb. 28, 2023
Basically, he heard Jack bad-mouthing him and saying really horrible things behind his back.
From "Wonder" by R. J. Palacio
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.
