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:
Men of courage don't fall sick because the newspapers calumniate them.
From Barrington Volume II (of II) by Charles James Lever
The enemies of the light shall not cease to calumniate and persecute you.
From John Ronge: The Holy Coat Of Treves New German-Catholic Chruch by Anonymous
Fearing that Caius will escape his vengeance, he steals money and offers it to Sempronius as an inducement to calumniate Caius.
From Moral Theology A Complete Course Based on St. Thomas Aquinas and the Best Modern Authorities by Charles Jerome Callan
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
Monsieur mon frère!" exclaimed the lady indignantly, "if you forget your own position and mine, I must beg you at least to remember the profession of the holy man whom you calumniate.
From A Night on the Borders of the Black Forest by Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards
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
Herr Professor," cried Leuthold, "I can only suppose that some one has shamefully calumniated me to you.
From Only a Girl: or, A Physician for the Soul. by Wilhelmine von Hillern
He calculates that, on his death, his book will be calumniated, as well as his reputation, and his arguments misrepresented, or mutilated.
From Ecce Homo! A Critical Inquiry into the History of Jesus of Nazareth: Being a Rational Analysis of the Gospels by Paul Henry Thiry Baron d' Holbach
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
O let not virtue seek Remuneration for the thing it was; For beauty, wit, High birth, vigor of bone, desert in service, Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all To envious and calumniating time.
From The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 by Various
There had been much calumniating cackle in the little town; nay, more: cackle is of geese; there had been venom of the snakiest kind.
From The Rough Road by William John Locke
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.
