noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   The act of injuring another person's reputation by any slanderous communication, written or oral; the wrong of maliciously injuring the good name of another. countable, uncountable

   "She sued his ex-boyfriend for defamation and is seeking $14,000."

2. 2
   an abusive attack on a person's character or good name wordnet
3. 3
   a false accusation of an offense or a malicious misrepresentation of someone's words or actions wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

aspersioncalumnycalumnyslandervilificationaspersion

Example

More examples

"The daughter of envy is defamation."

Etymology

From Old French diffamacion (French diffamation), from Latin diffāmātiō. By surface analysis, defame + -ation.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.