The Collaborative International Dictionary
Calumniate \Ca*lum"ni*ate\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Calumniated; p. pr. & vb. n. calumniating.] [L. calumniatus, p. p. of calumniari. See Calumny, and cf. Challenge, v. t.] To accuse falsely and maliciously of a crime or offense, or of something disreputable; to slander; to libel.
Hatred unto the truth did always falsely report and
calumniate all godly men's doings.
--Strype.
Syn. -- To asperse; slander; defame; vilify; traduce; belie; bespatter; blacken; libel. See Asperse.
Calumniate \Ca*lum"ni*ate\, v. i. To propagate evil reports with a design to injure the reputation of another; to make purposely false charges of some offense or crime.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1550s, from Latin calumniatus, past participle of calumniari "to accuse falsely," from calumnia "slander, false accusation" (see calumny). Related: Calumniated; calumniating.
Wiktionary
vb. 1 (context transitive English) To make hurtful untrue comments about. 2 (context transitive English) To levy a false charge against, especially of a vague offense, with the intent to damage someone's reputation or standing.
WordNet
Usage examples of "calumniate".
Jews an excuse for calumniating Him: for the same reasons He wished His Mother also to fulfil the prescriptions of the Law, to which, nevertheless, she was not subject.
It was evident that the spy had intentionally calumniated her, professing to have heard her speak incriminating words.
Calumny prefers attacking a successful man: I may be calumniated: three hundred and fifty thousand francs is a fortune capable of tempting even a rich man.
A very little man indeed had calumniated the conduct of a minister of the Crown, till it had been thought well that the minister should defend himself.
Such is often the reward of virtue here below, but the malicious persons who had tried to injure Donna Pelliccia by calumniating her to the king were the means of making her fortune.
Come and confound the declamations of a false wisdom or hypocritical piety, and avenge the heavens and the earth of man who calumniates them both!
Among these we may distinguish the inexpiable guilt of calumniating a bishop, a presbyter, or even a deacon.
But the same spirit is equally prone to the base practice of insulting and calumniating a fallen enemy.
For though not regarding the cause of quarrel in the same light as Maltravers, and putting aside all question as to the right of the latter to constitute himself the champion of the betrothed, or the avenger of the dead, it seemed clear to the soldier that a man whose confidential letter had been garbled by another for the purpose of slandering his truth and calumniating his name, had no option but contempt, or the sole retribution (wretched though it be) which the customs of the higher class permit to those who live within its pale.
In that same month of November a satirical journal, charged with calumniating the President of the Republic, was sentenced to fine and imprisonment for a caricature depicting a shooting-gallery and Louis Bonaparte using the Constitution as a target.
What appointments to office have they detailed which had never been thought of, merely to found a text for their calumniating commentaries.
It is hard for the noble officer to be publicly and daily calumniated on account of his rank and title, to be characterized as a traitor at the club and in the newspapers, to be designated by name as an object of popular suspicion and fury, to be hooted at in the streets and in the theater, to submit to the disobedience of his men, to be denounced, insulted, arrested, fleeced, hunted down and slaughtered by them and by the populace, to see before him a cruel, ignoble, and unavenged death - that of M.
He laughed at my spiteful remarks, and the worse I calumniated, the merrier was the king.
But they who most unpardonably calumniate this Christian era, are the very men who either themselves fled for asylum to the places specially dedicated to Christ, or were led there by the barbarians that they might be safe.
But doing justice, as I always will, to those who have been unjustly calumniated, at the same time I must admit that there is a point connected with slavery in America which renders it more odious than in other countries.