To bandy is to pass words or ideas back and forth carelessly. Bandy words, bandying accusations, his name is bandied about.
It nearly always appears as bandy about or bandy around, and it is disapproving — bandying a name about means using it loosely and probably unfairly. The image is a ball hit to and fro. Note bandy-legged, meaning bowed outward, which is a separate use of the same word.
1verbbandyTo pass words or ideas back and forth carelessly.
“Various names have been bandied about for the new manager, but nothing is decided.”
bandy is a careless exchanging.
French bander meant to hit a ball to and fro at tennis. The sense of tossing words about followed.
French
bander — to bandy at tennis
English, today
bandy
From French bander (“to bandy at tennis”), with -y, -ie added due to influence from Spanish and Portuguese bandear and/or Old Occitan bandir (“to throw”), from the same root as English band. Compare also with banter.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA