bad-mouth
or bad·mouth
[bad-mouth or, sometimes, -mouth]
- Slang. to speak critically and often disloyally of; disparage: Why do you bad-mouth your family so much?
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Origin of bad-mouth
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
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
bad-mouth
- (tr) slang to speak unfavourably about
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for bad-mouth
v.
"abuse someone verbally," 1941, probably ultimately from noun phrase bad mouth (1835), in Black English, "a curse, spell," translating an idiom found in African and West Indian languages. Related: Bad-mouthed; bad-mouthing.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper