1935–40; originally a curse, spell (the sense recorded in Gullah); compare Vai (Mande language of Liberia and Sierra Leone) dà nyà mà curse, literally, bad mouth
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Trying to get Pete Carroll to bad-mouth a former player of his is like trying to get an Auburn fan to yell “Roll Tide!”
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 24, 2023
Macchio also made the decision to never bad-mouth the Karate Kid films, even if he was frustrated with the direction his career had taken.
From BBC ● Nov. 24, 2022
Don’t split loyalties, and never bad-mouth your co-parent.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 13, 2022
“Some people bad-mouth America, but in reality, it’s a good country,” said Yoneha, who came to the U.S. from Okinawa on a whim 50 years ago.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 27, 2022
Pa said, “I advise caution, Leroy. I ain’t trying to bad-mouth no one, but how much we really know ’bout Zephariah?
From "Elijah of Buxton" by Christopher Paul Curtis
“I don’t want to bad mouth him but he wanted to keep managing. He just couldn’t accept not being there. That’s just the way it was.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 24, 2025
"It's never a good idea to post publicly about your break-up, to bad mouth them," William says.
From BBC ● Feb. 14, 2023
“People bad mouth ‘walled gardens’ and paid subscriptions, but I bet they’re the same people who say they support fair pay and want to reduce burnout,” he said.
From New York Times ● Mar. 4, 2022
I’m sure they’ll bad mouth me either way, but then I won’t care.
From Slate ● Sep. 5, 2017
They’d put the bad mouth on their aunt’s first American day; you had to sweeten their noisy barbarous mouths.
From "The Woman Warrior" by Maxine Hong Kingston
She also alleged that employees of the agency bad-mouthed NewJeans on internal communication app and asked a journalist to downplay the group's record sales in one article.
From BBC ● Nov. 20, 2024
One night, well into one of those dinners of fine food and finer storytelling, Majerus answered the puzzling question of why Knight bad-mouthed Wooden.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 5, 2023
The trustee for the auction told The Post that each man had bad-mouthed the other in advance of the public sale.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 31, 2020
For years, T-Mobile’s chief executive, John Legere, has gleefully bad-mouthed his much larger mobile phone competitors, Verizon Wireless and AT&T, for their high prices and profit margins, and their low-quality service.
From New York Times ● Jun. 1, 2019
Realizing that he was up against two big, competent mice who would stand no nonsense, he became abusive and bad-mouthed.
From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques
Judging from the near-universal backlash to Timothée Chalamet’s recent bad-mouthing of ballet, Eden’s summation of the central tenet of their show may be true.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 30, 2026
Your boss may be bad-mouthing you to others.
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 28, 2026
Mere hours before her own debate with Trump, Biden called her and demanded to know if she’d been bad-mouthing him to donors.
From Salon ● Sep. 26, 2025
Hanni further alleged that she had seen employees bad-mouthing NewJeans on Blind - an app for internal communications similar to Teams or Slack.
From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2024
I mean, I can’t imagine any Decker who would spend precious time praising or bad-mouthing the foundation.
From "They Both Die at the End" by Adam Silvera
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.
