SLANDER.
Synonyms:
| asperse, | decry, | disparage, | revile, |
| backbite, | defame, | libel, | traduce, |
| calumniate, | depreciate, | malign, | vilify. |
To slander a person is to utter a false and injurious report concerning him; to defame is specifically and directly to attack one's reputation; to defame by spoken words is to slander, by written words, to libel. To asperse is, as it were, to bespatter with injurious charges; to malign is to circulate studied and malicious attacks upon character; to traduce is to exhibit one's real or assumed traits in an odious light; to revile or vilify is to attack with vile abuse. To disparage is to represent one's admitted good traits or acts as less praiseworthy than they would naturally be thought to be, as for instance, by ascribing a man's benevolence to a desire for popularity or display. To libel or slander is to make an assault upon character and repute that comes within the scope of law; the slander is uttered, the libel written, printed, or pictured. To backbite is to speak something secretly to one's injury; to calumniate is to invent as well as utter the injurious charge. One may "abuse," "assail," or vilify another to his face; he asperses, calumniates, slanders, or traduces him behind his back.
Antonyms:
| defend, | eulogize, | extol, | laud, | praise, | vindicate. |
SLANG.
Synonyms:
| cant, | colloquialism, | vulgarism, | vulgarity. |