Showing results for "maligned"

• past participle of malign.
• past tense form of malign.

maligned

American  

[muh-lahynd] / məˈlaɪnd /

adjective

1. spoken ill of; defamed or slandered.

   I pointed to my unweeded yard full of bees and waxed rhapsodic about the benefits of the maligned dandelion.

   Considered by many to be a usurper and murderer, Richard III is one of the most maligned kings in history.

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verb

1. the simple past tense and past participle of malign.

Other Word Forms

• unmaligned
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of maligned

malign ( def. ) + -ed ² ( def. )

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

maligned

The author likens Grietje to the women of Salem and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Hester Prynne, describing her as one of early America’s “unfairly and heinously maligned women.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 19, 2026

Oral estrogens have been unfairly maligned, while transdermal patches have been deemed a safer option.

From MarketWatch ● May 12, 2026

Striker Youssef Chermiti has improved, along with other previously maligned figures such as Emmanuel Fernandez and Nasser Djiga.

From BBC ● May 9, 2026

McKellen has made dozens of films since, from superhero blockbusters to character-driven indies like “Six Degrees of Separation” and musicals such as “Beauty and the Beast” and even the maligned “Cats.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 8, 2026

Foremost among them is the unfairly maligned passive voice: Laius was killed by Oedipus, as opposed to Oedipus killed Laius.

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker