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
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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ASVAB Word Knowledge
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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.
Mr. German, who left the bureau in 2004 and authored the 2019 book “Disrupt, Discredit, and Divide: How the New FBI Damages Democracy,” said the actual problem is likely far worse than the public knows.
From Washington Times • May 19, 2022
Now available in your podcast player: the audiobook edition of Danny M. Lavery’s latest book, Something That May Shock and Discredit You.
From Slate • Sep. 15, 2020
Now available in your podcast player: The audiobook edition of Danny M. Lavery’s latest book, Something That May Shock and Discredit You.
From Slate • Sep. 14, 2020
“Something That May Shock and Discredit You” goes further; Lavery has called it “memoir-adjacent.”
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 12, 2020
Discredit has been cast on teratology because it has been incautiously used.
From Vegetable Teratology An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants by Masters, Maxwell T.
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.
