to malign
33
7.7
- verb
- /məˈlaɪn/
:
difamar
- It was unfair of him to malign her without knowing the facts.
- said to malign
Those are all ideas that come out of the much maligned enlightenment.
- Those are all ideas that come out of the much maligned enlightenment.
- I won't allow you to malign your contribution.
- Why have they been so maligned?
- People who want to save the world, people who want to save the unfortunate transgender people who are being maligned.
- And I think when Elon points this out, he gets very unfairly maligned in the media for all the dumb media bias reasons we talked about, right?
- The tuition fee for this place of leadership is being maligned, lied about, spoken about, and still loving those people enough to lead them as well.
- They will have no problem maligning people, publicly slandering them, or harming their reputations if they feel wronged by them.
- That we are really maligning the one country that's defending us and supplying us with, you know, funds and know how and weapons and the technology and so on.
- Now, though this newspaper is much maligned and misunderstood, the coverage that it does of science is actually, on closer inspection, pretty good.
- Because I thought he, although he was maligned a lot.
Examples
-
I won't allow you to malign your contribution.
-
How has the most maligned non-Black group jumped right over the imposing obstacle of race?
Academic text (2002) -
First of all, Sir, let's not malign the good name of The Twilight Zone.
-
I have been much maligned.
-
Instead of maligning me... let's take this land from sea to shining sea.
-
Historically, the African American student has tended to be maligned by the American educational system.
Academic text (1995) -
I want to say that what you implied isn't true, and if you malign Joe's talent in any way, I'll take you to court.
-
Students build models and work in teams; they don't simply sit in rows in the much-maligned "factory model" of schooling.
Academic text (1999) -
Do teachers teach a creative curriculum, or does the oft-maligned standardized curriculum stagnate students and teachers?
Academic text (1991) -
Moralists malign presumptuous apostles by claiming they engage their souls with error at every turn.
Fiction book (1991)
Synonyms
77
7.1
Make a person, group, or thing seem evil and dangerous, often unfairly
55
6.1
To make false or unfair statements to hurt someone's reputation
48
7.8
To say bad things about someone without a good reason to make them seem less important
43
7.9
To say or write bad things about someone to harm them
31
6.3
To say false things that damage someone's reputation
28
7.7
To speak badly about someone or something to show little respect
18
6.8
To say false things about someone that harm their good name
15
7.6
To speak badly about someone behind their backs
7
7.9
To speak badly about someone in public to hurt their reputation
2
6.9
Show someone as evil or the cause of problems
1
8.4
Say or do things that make someone seem less respected
1
9.8
To say false or very bad things about someone to harm their reputation
1
9.9
To say false things about someone to harm their reputation
Antonyms
How Harmful
Surface Forms
Morphology
malign = mal + ign
The prefix 'mal-' (bad) suggests a negative sense, but 'ign' is not an English base and the verbal sense ('to speak ill of') cannot be fully derived by learners from components alone.
Etymology
Malign (verb) comes from the same root mal- meaning 'bad', and it developed the idea of 'saying bad things about someone'. So to malign someone is to speak about them in a way that harms their reputation.