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calumny

UK/ˈkæləmni/US/ˈkæləmni/
nounC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechneutral

Other forms: calumnies

Calumny is a false statement made to damage a reputation. Spread calumny, a vile calumny, defend against calumny.

It is formal and old-fashioned, and slander and libel are the words that carry legal weight now. The Latin means trickery and is related to the word for a false accusation in Roman law.

Definitions of calumny

  1. 1nouncalumnyA false statement made to damage a reputation.C2

    “The minister called the newspaper's story a wicked calumny and threatened to sue.”

calumny is a slander.

Where it comes from

Latin calumnia means trickery or a false accusation.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *ḱelh₁-

  2. French

    calomnier — to slander

  3. Latin

    calumnia — false statement, misrepresentation; false accusation, malicious charge

  4. Old French

    calomnie — slander, calumny

  5. Middle English

    calumnīe — false accusation, slander; (law) objection raised in bad faith

  6. English, today

    calumny

Built from

  • calvor · Latin — to deceive
  • calumnior · Latin — to blame unjustly, misrepresent, calumniate; (law) to accuse falsely, bring false information against

From Late Middle English calumnīe (“false accusation, slander; (law) objection raised in bad faith”), borrowed from Old French calomnie (“slander, calumny”) (modern French calomnie), or directly from its etymon Latin calumnia (“false statement, misrepresentation; false accusation, malicious charge”), perhaps also related to calvor (“to deceive”). The English word is a a doublet of challenge. The verb is derived from French calomnier (“to slander”), from Latin calumniāre, from Latin calumpniārī, calumnior (“to blame unjustly, misrepresent, calumniate; (law) to accuse falsely, bring false information against”), from calumnia (see above) + -or.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

calumny in the wild

  • Meldred honors the bargain, though the embarrassed queen tries to persuade her husband it was falsehood and that Lailoken should be pursued for the calumny.

    Lailoken

  • However, as a result of a calumny by his own cousin, Takakuni felt obliged to have Motomori killed.

    Hosokawa Takakuni

  • Scaramella was a suspect by the Italian justice department for calumny.

    Mario Scaramella

  • Talik claimed that Scaramella had exaggerated the assassination plot, which led to the calumny charge.

    Mario Scaramella

  • The laws punish those who intentionally offend the feelings of the religious, e.g. by disturbing services or creating public calumny.

    Hate speech laws in Poland

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.