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vilify
[ vil-uh-fahy ]
verb (used with object)
- to speak ill of; defame; slander.
Synonyms: blacken, asperse, abuse, malign, calumniate, disparage, depreciate
Antonyms: commend
- Obsolete. to make vile.
vilify
/ ˈvɪlɪˌfaɪ; ˌvɪlɪfɪˈkeɪʃən /
verb
- to revile with abusive or defamatory language; malign
he has been vilified in the tabloid press
- rare.to make vile; debase; degrade
Derived Forms
- vilification, noun
- ˈviliˌfier, noun
Other Words From
- vil·i·fi·ca·tion [vil-, uh, -fi-, key, -sh, uh, n], noun
- vil·i·fi·er noun
- vil·i·fy·ing·ly adverb
- un·vil·i·fied adjective
Word History and Origins
Word History and Origins
Origin of vilify1
Example Sentences
Both Irene and Clare are at once the villains and the victims of a society that would force them to choose one existence over another, vilifying Claire’s choices in one breath and praising Irene’s fair skin in the next.
Wilkie used this language despite a caution from one of his own senior lawyers, who suggested rephrasing to avoid “deterring women veterans from coming forward” by “overly vilifying” Goldstein, according to the report.
These facts will make it more difficult — more egregiously shameful — to vilify the arts as elite, out of touch or apart from the mainstream of American life.
While she’s been embraced by voters in neighborhoods most affected by crime and policing, she’s been vilified in communities where most of the city’s police officers live.
I took on my own party and my own president on this, and I was vilified, and I was called a traitor and a RINO.
But it remains a moral crime to vilify good cops who have made the city safe, saving thousands of lives.
And there is the additional fear in these types of cases that the public will vilify the victim, not a celebrity wrongdoer.
With few Yankees left to vilify, Venezuela continues its slow motion spin into disrepair.
Rather than vilify Republicans for their defense of the wealthy, he returned again to trying to win the intellectual high ground.
Once upon a pre-feminist time, it was more common to vilify the woman.
On the other hand, I could not bring myself by lengthy or impossible quotations to vilify Duns.
To vilify another is foolish; to repeat it, is the function of a rogue.
I should require "a character" at some time or another, and there was a body of men primed and ready to vilify and crush me.
Again he calls upon his fawning admirers to annihilate Christianity, to hunt it down, to vilify it, to ruin it.
But what would become of "bad tongues" in this world if there were not generous natures to calumniate and vilify?
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