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Sunday September 19, 2004

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calumny \KAL-uhm-nee\ , noun:
1. False accusation of a crime or offense, intended to injure another's reputation.
2. Malicious misrepresentation; slander.

They would see to it that every suspicious whisper and outright calumny would be repeated in print, breathing fire into the growing spirit of faction.
-- William Safire, Scandalmonger

They protest to him against the universal order, and then reward his kind words by calumny and accusations of . . . inhumanity and cruelty.
-- Paola Capriolo, Floria Tosca

Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.
-- Shakespeare, Hamlet

Calumny comes, via Middle French, from Latin calumnia, from calvi, "to form intrigues, to deceive." The adjective form is calumnious.

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for calumny

 

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