traduce

American  

[truh-doos, -dyoos] / trəˈdus, -ˈdjus /

verb (used with object)

• traduces,
  present (3rd person singular)
• traduced,
  past participle,  past
• traducing
  present participle

1. to speak maliciously and falsely of; slander; defame.

   to traduce someone's character.

   Synonyms:

   disparage, decry, vilify

   Antonyms:

   praise

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traduce British  

/ trəˈdjuːs /

verb

1. (tr) to speak badly of

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• traducement
  noun
• traducer
  noun
• traducible
  adjective
• untraduced
  adjective
• traducingly
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Participles

• traducing
  present
• traduced
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• traduce
  simple
• traduces
  simple
• have traduced
  perfect
• has traduced
  perfect
• am traducing
  progressive
• are traducing
  progressive
• is traducing
  progressive
• have been traducing
  perfect progressive
• has been traducing
  perfect progressive

Past

• traduced
  simple
• had traduced
  perfect
• was traducing
  progressive
• were traducing
  progressive
• had been traducing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will traduce
  simple
• will have traduced
  perfect
• will be traducing
  progressive
• will have been traducing
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of traduce

1525–35; < Latin trādūcere, variant of trānsdūcere to transfer, display, expose, equivalent to trāns- trans- + dūcere to lead

Explanation

To traduce is to badmouth someone or something. If you don't want people talking trash about you, then don't traduce them either — even if they started it. Among cabaret performers, there is long tradition of traducing other performers — though at its heart, it's really a way of showing affection. Showing love by being mean: such is the strange world of camp. Of course, in order to know that a person is being funny when they traduce another person, you usually have to know them both pretty well. So if you're not either very familiar or very funny, avoid traducing other people for laughs: they're likely to think that you meant all those nasty things.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

traduce traduces traduced traducing

Artificial-intelligence researchers rush to create it, even though computer-as-brain metaphors traduce the complexity of human biology, at least for now.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 15, 2026

“The government will in no way traduce or criticize the work of the committee who are doing exactly what Parliament has asked them to do.”

From Washington Times ● Jun. 12, 2023

And did she somehow betray or traduce them, hold them in contempt or unjustifiably exploit them?

From Washington Post ● Sep. 26, 2022

Art for art’s sake recognized that if you subordinate art to an idea like “the greater good,” you traduce it.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 25, 2022

“Mrs. Watson,” he said, “I’d like to in- traduce you to your long-lost son from Siam, His Royal Highness, Yul Watson!”

From "The Watsons Go to Birmingham" by Christopher Paul Curtis

But valuing a forest for that purpose traduces what forests are.

From New York Times ● May 16, 2017

He who traduces himself, sins with him who traduces another.

From Zenobia or, the Fall of Palmyra by William Ware

He spoils the Elibank Plot, he reveals the hostile policy of Frederick the Great, he leads on to the arrest of Archibald Cameron, he sows disunion, he traduces and betrays. 

From Pickle the Spy; Or, the Incognito of Prince Charles by Andrew Lang

Or did he give this poor woman any opportunity of obtaining justice against this Captain Gordon, who, after acknowledging that he owed his life to her favor, calumniates and traduces her to her utter destruction?

From The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 12 (of 12) by Edmund Burke

Holkar, for instance, unless common fame traduces him, has rather an itching for what Mr. Laing calls 'hard rupees.'

From Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin by Eighth Earl of Elgin James

“Throughout history, women have been traduced and silenced. Now, it’s our time to tell our own stories in our own words.”

From The Guardian ● Nov. 18, 2018

More troubling, Bouvier has also traduced the idea of what an art dealer should be.

From The New Yorker ● Feb. 8, 2016

It is the sort of double-cross and double blow that no clean athlete deserves, traduced by the cheats, smeared by the actions of those who have already duped them once.

From BBC ● Nov. 9, 2015

This is, after all, a regime that traduced all diplomatic norms by seizing the U.S.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2015

I have not shrunk from toil, danger, nor hardships, and though alone-handed and unsustained, black-balled and traduced, astonishing to say, my measures have yet succeeded.

From A History of Oregon, 1792-1849 Drawn From Personal Observation and Authentic Information by William Henry Gray

It’s an approach now so mainstream that it’s become an orthodoxy of its own; it’s difficult to think of a writer today, of any genre, who doesn’t congratulate herself for traducing artificial binaries.

From New York Times ● Jul. 7, 2020

Calling someone a “flirt” isn’t seen as an insult, but in some cases it might serve as a snide sort of traducing.

From The Guardian ● Feb. 14, 2020

Yale has been seduced by a $150 million “bells and whistles” student center into traducing the best of what it and Holloway have stood for.

From Salon ● Sep. 21, 2019

So, wonderfully, traducing Microsoft across the Internet helps Sony, and vice versa.

From Forbes ● Nov. 5, 2013

"O Olympia! where do you get such repulsive ideas of us; who has been traducing us to you?"

From The Iron Game A Tale of the War by Henry F. (Henry Francis) Keenan