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:
Is it necessary to hate those who disagree with you, and to calumniate those whose argument you cannot answer, in order to be spiritual?
From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 11 (of 12) Dresden Edition?Miscellany by Robert Green Ingersoll
We shall be able to meet at a dance now and then, and swing merrily round while they sit by who calumniate us.
From Ovind A Story of Country Life in Norway by Bj?rnstjerne Bj?rnson
The hired advocate may calumniate as he will, but he can show no collusion or connivance on your part.
From The Knight Of Gwynne, Vol. II (of II) by Charles James Lever
When, therefore, they dare to calumniate the masters who have scattered over us so much beneficence, anti-vivisectionists seem to me to be not only the most ungrateful but even the cruellest of men.
From The Pros and Cons of Vivisection by Charles Richet
Example: Balbus wishes to calumniate Caius, but is not able to do so himself.
From Moral Theology A Complete Course Based on St. Thomas Aquinas and the Best Modern Authorities by Charles Jerome Callan
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
Then, what mighty blessings are we not indebted for to the much-aspersed, calumniated, and insulted herb.
From Nicotiana Or The Smoker's and Snuff-Taker's Companion by Henry James Meller
Mandeville was the Bruce of the fourteenth century, as often calumniated and even ridiculed.
From Amenities of Literature Consisting of Sketches and Characters of English Literature by Isaac Disraeli
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
Lord Byron answered, depreciating himself in a literary sense, and calumniating himself morally, by the assertion that he resembled Lord Lyttelton's son—a bad, though talented man—rather than the great author.
From My Recollections of Lord Byron by Sir Hubert E. H. (Hubert Edward Henry) Jerningham
She was for ever lamenting the injustice done to Michael, and calumniating the house of Trevethlan for its treatment of her favourite daughter.
From Trevethlan (Vol 3 of 3) A Cornish Story. by William Davy Watson
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.
