discredit
Americanverb (used with object)
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to injure the credit or reputation of; defame.
an effort to discredit honest politicians.
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to show to be undeserving of trust or belief; destroy confidence in.
Later research discredited earlier theories.
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to give no credence to; disbelieve.
There was good reason to discredit the witness.
noun
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loss or lack of belief or confidence; disbelief; distrust.
His theories met with general discredit.
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loss or lack of repute or esteem; disrepute.
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something that damages a good reputation.
This behavior will be a discredit to your good name.
verb
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to damage the reputation of
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to cause to be disbelieved or distrusted
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to reject as untrue or of questionable accuracy
noun
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a person, thing, or state of affairs that causes disgrace
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damage to a reputation
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lack of belief or confidence
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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discreditsimple
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discreditssimple
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have discreditedperfect
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has discreditedperfect
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am discreditingprogressive
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are discreditingprogressive
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is discreditingprogressive
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have been discreditingperfect progressive
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has been discreditingperfect progressive
Past
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discreditedsimple
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had discreditedperfect
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was discreditingprogressive
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were discreditingprogressive
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had been discreditingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of discredit
Explanation
Discredit means to cause mistrust or cast the accuracy of something into doubt. If you say that schooling is important to you, but you never study, your actions discredit you and your words. You discredit what someone says when you choose not to believe it. You can discredit the rumors going around about your boyfriend if you are sure of his love. On a more personal level, you discredit people when you cast their authority or reputation into doubt. If you're running a tough race for class president, your opponent may try to discredit you by talking about your failures or even making up lies about you. But this would be to the discredit of your opponent — his or her own reputation would suffer for this bad behavior.
Vocabulary lists containing discredit
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Believe It or Not: Cred
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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.
Seemingly to discredit the precedent, she argues the Court is too quick to dismiss the idea that the Bruen history test should include post-Civil War Southern laws disarming blacks.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 26, 2026
She praised Bernard as "an amazing human being" and said he had found it very difficult to see his stepmother in court "stand there and lie and try to discredit him".
From BBC • May 26, 2026
“This is the reward for our warning the world that these viruses were coming,” Daszak says of the campaign to discredit EcoHealth.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 30, 2026
To my mind, these wildly inconsistent results are enough to discredit any accusation based on a Pangram analysis.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 3, 2026
“They’ll try to discredit the other kids,” I said between gritted teeth.
From "Three Little Words: A Memoir" by Ashley Rhodes-Courter
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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.