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The act of defaming
Answer for the clue "The act of defaming ", 7 letters:
calumny
Alternative clues for the word calumny
Word definitions for calumny in dictionaries
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Word definitions in The Collaborative International Dictionary
Calumny \Cal"um*ny\, n.; pl. Calumnies . [L. calumnia, fr. calvi to devise tricks, deceive; cf. F. calomnie. Cf. Challenge , n.] False accusation of a crime or offense, maliciously made or reported, to the injury of another; malicious misrepresentation; ...
Wiktionary
Word definitions in Wiktionary
n. 1 A falsification or misrepresentation intended to disparage or discredit another. 2 false charges brought about to tarnish another's reputation or standing.
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Word definitions in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
noun EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS ▪ He could brand this as a calumny . ▪ He was relaxed, a contrast to the tension which had gripped him while he spoke of the MacQuillan calumny . ▪ Murders, theft, rape, calumnies, graft - our daily bread.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Word definitions in Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"False & malicious misrepresentation of the words or actions of others, calculated to injure their reputation" [Fowler], mid-15c., from Middle French calomnie (15c.), from Latin calumnia "trickery, subterfuge, misrepresentation, malicious charge," from ...
Usage examples of calumny.
Again, in 1614, we find him in Asuncion combating calumnies spread by the Spanish settlers against the Jesuits.
Catholics, are popular superstitions, envy, calumnies, backbiting, insinuations, and the like, which, being neither punished nor refuted, stir up suspicion of witchcraft.
In after times these may be told, and the life of Fanny Derham be presented as a useful lesson, at once to teach what goodness and genius can achieve in palliating the woes of life, and to encourage those, who would in any way imitate her, by an example of calumny refuted by patience, errors rectified by charity, and the passions of our nature purified and ennobled by an underviating observance of those moral laws on which all human excellence is founded--a love of truth in ourselves, and a sincere sympathy with our fellow-creatures.
History should bring its collateral assistance: the Medicean Queens, Venice, bloody Spain, hard-visaged monks calmly directing the engines of torture, the poison of anonymous calumny, and dread secrets more dreadfully betrayed, could furnish much of truthful precedent.
Then, remembering that calumny was a most serviceable weapon, he put about the town a report that the Indians from the missions had pillaged Yaguaron, and that they even then were marching on the place.
Imagine a semi-communistic settlement set close to the borders of Rhodesia, in which thousands of Kaffirs passed a life analogous to that passed by the Indians of the missions -- cared for and fed by the community, looked after in every smallest particular of their lives -- and what a flood of calumny would be let loose upon the unfortunate devisers of the scheme!
This form of nihilism, despite appearances, is still nihilism in the Nietzschean sense, to the extent that it is a calumny of the present life to the advantage of a historical future in which one tries to believe.
It is easy for faction and calumny to shed their poison on the administration of the best of princes, and to accuse even their virtues by artfully confounding them with those vices to which they bear the nearest affinity.
Notwithstanding, I took the story for an atrocious calumny, but yet the matter was too near my heart for me to delay in bringing it to light at the earliest opportunity.
As to the calumny, he protested he had only repeated common rumour, and professed his joy at finding it had been mistaken.
A few staunch friends Richard had, who made it their business stoutly to contradict the calumnies which came within their hearing, Daniel Dabbs the first of them.
Keene might have fallen short of prudence, with the result that Daniel Dabbs might be in a position to trace this calumny to him, Mutimer.
Yet America has resounded from shore to shore with execrations against his barbarous calumnies.
Foreseeing that feminine pride might prompt them to treat my accusation as an idle calumny, I resolved not to give them time, and drawing Manon on to my knee I embraced her with such ardour that she gave in and abandoned herself to my passion.
A man should neither talk of himself nor write of himself, unless it be to refute some calumny or libel.