Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To speak spitefully or slanderously about (another).
- v. To speak spitefully or slanderously about a person.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To injure morally in a manner comparable to biting from behind; attack the character or reputation of secretly; censure, slander, or speak evil of in absence: rarely with a thing as object.
- To slander or speak evil of the absent.
Wiktionary
- v. To make spiteful slanderous or defamatory statements about someone.
- v. informal To attack from behind or when out of earshot.
- v. To speak badly of an absent individual.
- n. One who engages in backbiting; a backbiter.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To wound by clandestine detraction; to censure meanly or spitefully (an absent person); to slander or speak evil of (one absent).
- v. To censure or revile the absent.
WordNet 3.0
- v. say mean things
Etymologies
- From Middle English bakbiten, bacbiten, equivalent to back + bite. Cognate with Icelandic bakbíta ("to backbite, vilify"). (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Wherefore, properly speaking, to backbite is to speak ill of an absent person in order to blacken his good name.”
“Now who is that so base and ungrateful as to rise from a table where such delicious victuals are served and "backbite" the neighbor who prepares it?”
“Due to the fact that they are prone to backbite each other I keep my words very short to them.”
“It has just about started realizing, after much needless suffering of its own from blowback and backbite, that surviving the whirlwind of globalization takes smarts rather than brute force.”
The Huffington Post: Vamsee Juluri: Indophobia: The Real Elephant in the Living Room
“He points out shortfalls in his opponents platforms and gets called 'negative' for it, while his opponents barf up crap and name call and backbite and are called geniuses.”
“Fall not into one name with that unclean spirit, nor act his nature whom thou so much abhorrest, that is, to accuse, calumniate, backbite, whisper, detract, or sinistrously interpret others.”
“Were you, like me, brought up to be graceful? don't give them the satisfaction, don't backbite, don't bite back.”
“For those selecting to backbite instead of making a simple phone call and for those who would hand down a public verdict without the opportunity of a defense for the accused.”
“(49: 11-12) "Do not backbite or speak ill of one another.”
“My mind wanders, from the fact that those people do not have any dignity, to believe firmly; that the money they gain is blood money and it will backbite them at some point in life.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘backbite’.
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back phrases/hyphens/compounds
backache to backyard
back-ache, back-aching, back-acter, back-acting, back-answer, back-bar, back-basket, back beat, back-bias, back-blast, back-blowing, back-boiler and 342 more...
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Unknown
coalition, cabinet, tweet, defuse, steep, ancestral, mindset, breach, infraction, egregious, curb, backbite and 282 more...
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Censure (v.)
Someone must have had an inferiority complex.
vituperate, vilify, trounce, traduce, slander, scold, revile, reprove, reprimand, reprehend, remonstrate, rebuke and 37 more...
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Bite me
bite, bitewing, biteplate, backbite, checkbite, biter, exhibited, sound bite, snakebite, rat-bite fever, overbite, debited and 32 more...
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vozcelik's Words
cranny, tummy, nook, sinister, cajole, frugal, chafe, wimp, booger, patriarchy, indifference, mire and 162 more...
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Front and Back
backchat, backbone, backpack, backhoe, backfire, backhanded, breakfront, beachfront, drawback, effrontery, frontier, switchback and 196 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for backbite.
brtom Oh! there’s that disagreeable lover of mine, Sir Benjamin Backbite, has just called at my guardian’s, with his odious uncle, Crabtree
Sheridan, School for Scandal Jan 6, 2008