Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The act of slandering the absent; secret calumny.
Wiktionary
- n. The action of slandering a person without that person's knowledge.
- adj. A person who slanders or speaks badly of a person without that person's knowledge.
- v. present participle of backbite.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Secret slander; detraction.
Etymologies
- From backbite. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“He offered friendship to many people and never engaged in backbiting and exclusionary activities so typical of academia.”
“Another form of art world backbiting is simply to never offer praise for or speak about a particular artist.”
The Huffington Post: Daniel Grant: There's a Lot of Backbiting Among Artists
“So slander him not, for backbiting is blameable and poisoned is the flesh of the pious. 443 Look how he inciteth us to fight the foe; and, did not Almighty Allah love him, He had cast him aforetime into fearful torment.”
“The criticism here, like much of the political backbiting, is way out of line.”
“It is said that in other society there is sometimes a great scramble for the first place, for the leadership, as it is called, and that women, and men too, fight for what is called position; and in order to be first they will injure their neighbors by telling stories about them and by backbiting, which is the meanest kind of biting there is, not excepting the bite of fleas.”
“Let us banish from the social circle that spirit of detraction and backbiting, which is always the bane of society.”
“His supporter, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, told reporters he thinks this kind of backbiting destroys the party.”
“His supporter, former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, told reporters he thinks this kind of backbiting destroys the party.”
“We've had a minimum so far of kind of backbiting and factionalism and all that you hear about.”
“Steele says he's tired of "backbiting" and "nitpicking" within the party following heated”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘backbiting’.
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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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New Words
smarmy, purge, linger, shimmer, fiercely, frantically, shove, grunt, errand, clench, wriggle, squeeze and 168 more...
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Gossip Column
What's the scuttlebutt? Inspired by an OUP blog post.
clacket, chatterbox, tonguester, prattle-basket, whitter-whatter, gabble, chelp, chirm, tittle-tattle, bribble-babble, snatter, psilology and 35 more...
Tweets
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