Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Slander   /slˈændər/   Listen
Slander

noun
1.
Words falsely spoken that damage the reputation of another.
2.
An abusive attack on a person's character or good name.  Synonyms: aspersion, calumny, defamation, denigration.



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Slander" Quotes from Famous Books



... that pure lovely face and believe aught against your honour? I could despise my father, though his only son, could I for an instant imagine him capable of taking advantage of such youth and innocence. But no, it is a foul slander invented by a villain to answer some base purpose; and may I perish, ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie

... dastardly slander than is contained in the assertion that the majority or any considerable proportion of working men neglect their families through drink. It is a condemned lie. There are some who do, but they are not even a large minority. They are few and far between, and are regarded with contempt ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... of an improper affection for Hortense. The world has been filled with the slander. Says Bourrienne, "Napoleon never cherished for her any feeling but a real paternal tenderness. He loved her after his marriage with her mother, as he would have loved his own child. At least for three years I was a witness to all their most ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott

... summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, I'll sweeten thy sad grave; thou shalt not lack The flow'r that's like thy face, pale primrose, nor The azur'd hare-bell, like thy veins, no, nor The leaf of eglantine, which not to slander, Out-sweeten'd not ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... The mystery is of your own making. The late Mrs. Harold Hunsden was a native of New York. There she was married—there she died at her daughter's birth. Captain Hunsden cherishes her memory all too deeply to make it the town talk, hence all the county is up agape inventing slander. I hope ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming

... discord and division in the county, is imputable to a few individuals named and pointed out by it?—Aside from the base and unprincipled attempts of Roe, Thompson and some of their co-adjutors, to prostrate the only republican press in the county, by a system of slander and detraction; The public cannot have forgotten that Mr Young's famous colleagues were mildly and publicly invited to an amicable explanation, which they refused and rendered the publication of affidavits necessary in justification. The only reply which was received, was a still ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector

... slander upon young men for you to say that they—that any of them with a spark of decency—would do as you have done, as you DO! Leave my ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips

... strange gifts in nature, but no soule Diffus'd quite through, to make them of a peece, But stop at humours, that are more absurd, Childish and villanous than that hackster, whore, 455 Slave, cut-throat, tinkers bitch, compar'd before; And in those humours would'st envie, betray, Slander, blaspheme, change each houre a religion, Doe any thing, but killing of the King: That in thy valour (which is still the dunghill, 460 To which hath reference all filth in thy house) Th'art more ridiculous and vaine-glorious Than any mountibank, ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman

... ever would have. She was always opposed to building it; but she never had her way about any thing. Nevertheless, some people said Mr. Troost had taken the dimensions of his house with his wife's apron-strings—but that may have been slander. ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... which I don't defend neither, and if any others have carelesly past the Press I'm sorry for't, for I hate them as much as he, yet because the Doctor has quoted the Statute Law against it and Players, to slander on one side, tho to reform on t'other, I will in return quote another piece of Law relating to Oaths, extreamly for his advantage, for there is only this quibbling difference between us, 'Tis a fault in us in swearing when we should not, and in him for ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet

... well of others, but are always cutting and stinging, and pinching and biting, ever gain anything by their malice; for when the bags come to be shaken out, it has always been seen, and is so still, that whilst a good word gains love and profit, slander brings enmity and ruin; and when you shall have heard how this happens, you will say I speak ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile

... Hippy, with dignity. "The jury knows me for what I am. Just let me tell you that if I were to have you arrested for slander there wouldn't be the slightest chance of my being ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower

... her husband by his neglect or desertion, she may protect her reputation by an action for slander and libel; but if her husband is the defendant, this suit, as also for alimony and divorce, must be in the name of a "next friend." She is entitled to a writ of habeas corpus if unlawfully restrained of her liberty (Purd. Dig., 510, 12; 513, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... he can indict Ctesiphon on my account, he would not have forborne to indict me myself had he thought he could convict me. In short, whatever else he saw me doing to your prejudice, whether mentioned or not mentioned in his catalogue of slander, there are laws for such things, and trials, and judgments, with sharp and severe penalties, all of which he might have enforced against me; and, had he done so—had he thus pursued the proper method with me—his charges would have been consistent with his conduct. But now ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... people went home satisfied; but not so the Rev. Robert Wringhim. He did all that he could to inflame both judges and populace against the young Cavaliers, especially against the young Laird of Dalcastle, whom he represented as an incendiary, set on by an unnatural parent to slander his mother, and make away with a hapless and only brother; and, in truth, that declaimer against all human merit had that sort of powerful, homely, and bitter eloquence which seldom missed affecting his hearers: the consequence at that time ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... Rev. S.G. Wright: "A great deal of your preaching I readily understand, especially what you say about our real characters. We Indians all know that it is wrong to lie, to steal, to be dishonest, to slander, to be covetous, and we always know that the Great Spirit hates all these things. All this we knew before we ever saw the white man. I knew these things when I was a little boy. We did not, however, know the way of pardon ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood

... I went away last summer I had good reasons for keeping my plans to myself. I got back to the Toban and found slander accusing me of sporting in the city, deviling around with liquor and women. That's ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day

... model for the mighty world, To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, To lead sweet lives in purest chastity, Not only to keep down the base in man, But teach high thought, and amiable words, And courtliness, and the desire of fame, And love of truth, and ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... associate themselves with those working for a genuine reform in governmental and social methods, and sometimes masquerade as such reformers. In reality they are the worst enemies of the cause they profess to advocate, just as the purveyors of sensational slander in newspaper or magazine are the worst enemies of all men who are engaged in an honest effort to better what is bad in our social and governmental conditions. To preach hatred of the rich man as such, to carry on a campaign of slander and invective against him, to seek to mislead and inflame ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... golden hair Uplifted from his ancient nurse's breast, Beginning, upon Alpine regions bare, To chase the shades and gild the mountain-crest, When Martan', fearing Gryphon might declare His wrong, and to the king the truth attest, Retorting upon him the slander cast, Took leave, and thence ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... but they cannot hide The sun's meridian glow; The heel of a priest may tread thee down And a tyrant work thee woe; But never a truth has been destroyed; They may curse it and call it crime; Pervert and betray, or slander and slay Its teachers for a time. But the sunshine aye shall light the sky, As round and round we run; And the Truth shall ever come uppermost, And ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... to grow therein. You all have heard of the Upas, which has a power sufficient to destroy the lives of animals and vegetables for a large distance around. Its very exhalations are death to whatever approaches it. It serves in metaphor to illustrate the noxious effects of all vice, of slander and deceit, the effects of which are to the moral constitution, what the tree itself is to natural objects, blight and mildew upon whatever comes within ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch

... I clutch, whose devices were such, That death must have lent them his sting— So daring they were, so reckless of fear, As heaven had wanted a king? Did the tongue of the lie, while it couch'd like a spy In the haunt of thy venomous jaws, Its slander display, as poisons its prey The devilish snake in the grass? That member unchain'd, by strong bands is restrain'd, The inflexible shackles of death; And, its emblem, the trail of the worm, shall prevail Where its slaver once harbour'd beneath. And oh! if thy scorn went down to ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... the Church which you persecute, I shall endure. We have been martyred throughout the ages. And we are very patient. Our wayward children forsake us," nodding toward Father Waite, "and yet we welcome their return when they have tired of the husks. The press teems with slander against us; we are reviled from east to west. But our reply is that such slander and untruth can best be met by our leading individual lives of such an exemplary nature as to cause all men to be ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... so," said the Doctor, after some little hesitation. "I think it has been, in truth, her doing. There has been a grand opportunity for slander, and she has used it with uncommon skill. It was a wonderful chance in her favour. She has been enabled without actual lies,—lies which could be proved to be lies,—to spread abroad reports which have been absolutely damning. And she has succeeded in getting hold of the very people ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope

... comfort that now remains to me. And he might say things that would be prejudicial to others,—especially to you. Could this in any way be prevented? I suppose the papers would publish anything; and you know how greedily people will read slander about those whose names are in any way remarkable. In my heart I believe he is insane; but it is very hard that one's privacy should be at the mercy of a madman. He says that he can get an order from the Court of Queen's Bench which will oblige the judges in Saxony ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... the same tone, "you have lived with me many months. Mine is a life of privacy and retirement compared with that of other men. I strive to be useful to my fellow-creatures, and am happy if I succeed. If any one may claim immunity from slander and reproach, it is I, who have avoided diligently all appearance of offence. Yet I have not succeeded. You are about to mix again with men. You have joined the church, and you will not fail to hear me spoken of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... the sentence; and so, without respect either for the body or for the soul of his brother, slays and imperils the salvation of him for whom Christ died. And all this is to be done to avoid a blow, a slander, an insulting word, or some other offence for which neither the law nor any authorised judge could assign the penalty ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... giving the details of things that never happened—most biography is usually the lie coming from the mouth of flattery, or the slander coming from the lips of malice, and whoever attacks the religion of a country will, in his turn, be attacked. Whoever attacks a superstition will find that superstition defended by all the meanness of ingenuity. Whoever attacks a superstition ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll

... Johnny Dacre, one of my subs, had a brother in Boyce's old regiment. For my own part I scouted the story as soon as I heard it, and I withered up young Dacre for daring to bring such abominable slander within my Rhadamanthine sphere. I dismissed the calumny from my mind. Providentially, (as I heard later), the news came of Boyce's "mention," and Somers was set down as a liar. The poor devil was had up before the Colonel ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... said Joseph Bridau. "In our day we cannot show those beautiful flowers of womanhood which graced the golden ages of the French Monarchy. The great lady's fan is broken. A woman has nothing now to blush for; she need not slander or whisper, hide her face or reveal it. A fan is of no use now but for fanning herself. When once a thing is no more than what it is, it is too useful to ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac

... too near me," Dion angrily responded, "and I might really stick fast, as I was warned; for I do not envy the ready presence of mind of any person whose tongue would not falter when the basest slander scattered its venom over him. You all know, fellow-citizens, through how many generations the Didymus family has lived to the honour of this city, doing praiseworthy work in yonder house. You know that the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul, and thy neighbour as thyself. Thou shalt honour thy father and thy mother. Thou shalt not kill, steal, commit adultery, slander, or covet." So it is written: not merely on those old tables of stone on Sinai; but in The Eternal Will of God, and in the very nature of this world, which God has made. There is no escaping those Laws. ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley

... hostility to the king. One man got into some contention with one of the king's officers, and finally struck him. He was fined ten thousand pounds. Another man said that a certain archbishop had incurred the king's displeasure by desiring some toleration for the Catholics. This was considered a slander against the archbishop, and the offender was sentenced to be fined a thousand pounds, to be whipped, imprisoned, and to stand in the pillory at Westminster, and at three other places in various ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... sparkling stars by night. PUNCHINELLO no doubt likes sparkling stars—stars of magnitude—stars that show what they are. PUNCHINELLO perhaps goes to NIBLO'S, and not only sees plenty stars, but plenty of them. But of April. It is called "fickle;" but that's a slander. "Every thing by turns and nothing long"—that is a libel on which a suit could be hung. The same vile falsehood is cruelly uttered of some women, when every body knows, or should know, that these same women are nothing of the sort. Who ever ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various

... hatred, was entirely banished from their conversation; for it is impossible not to hate men if we believe them to be wicked, or to live with the wicked without concealing that hatred under a false pretence of good feeling. Slander thus puts us ill at ease with others and with ourselves. In this little circle, therefore, the conduct of individuals was not discussed, but the best manner of doing good to all; and although they had but little ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre

... detraction, disparagement, depreciation, vilification, obloquy, scurrility, scandal, defamation, aspersion, traducement, slander, calumny, obtrectation^, evil-speaking, backbiting, scandalum magnatum [Lat.]. personality, libel, lampoon, skit, pasquinade; chronique scandaleuse [Fr.]; roorback [U.S.]. sarcasm, cynicism; criticism (disapprobation) 932; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... kinds and she took them and turned them over, talking with him the while. Then said she to him, "Look at the shapeliness of my shape and my semblance! Seest thou in me aught of default?" He replied, "No, O my lady;" and she continued, "Is it lawful in any one that he should slander me and say that I am humpbacked?" Then she discovered to him a part of her bosom, and when he saw her breasts his reason took flight from his head and his heart crave to her and he cried, "Cover it up,[FN262] so may Allah veil thee!" Quoth she, "Is it fair of any ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... slander on the human race!' Then read conviction in Ortuno's case. By Nature fashion'd in her happiest mood, With learning, fancy, keenest wit endued; To what high purpose, what exalted end These lofty gifts did great Ortuno bend? With grateful triumph did Ortuno ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston

... he to consider the false teachers alone, he might easily defer their retribution to the future life, since he permits many other transgressors to go unpunished for ten, twenty or thirty years. But the fact is, God openly in this life lays hold upon leaders of sects who blaspheme and slander him with their false doctrines. He inflicts upon them unusual punishments for the sake of warning others. Besides being openly convicted of blasphemy and having the condemnation of their own conscience, the misguided ones receive testimony ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther

... impenetrable. If you are as ignorant as we, have some indulgence for those who ingenuously confess that they comprehend nothing of it, or that they see nothing in it Divine. Cease to persecute for opinions which you do not understand yourselves; cease to slander each other for dreams and conjectures which are altogether contradictory; speak to us of intelligible and truly useful things; and no longer tell us of the impenetrable ways of a God, about which you do nothing but ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier

... baffled pursuers, and far beyond the reach of their arrows. To stand upon that tower lifts a man above the region where temptations fly, above the region where sorrow strikes; lifts him above sin and guilt and condemnation and fear, and calumny and slander, and sickness, and separation and loneliness and death; 'and all the ills that flesh ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... well to carry a stick if we walk alone in Epping Forest. We have abolished duelling. We have forbidden prize-fights. Even the horse-whip has ceased to be the patrician's mode of redressing wrong. For assault, libel, slander, we have a remedy in the law courts. Even in our punishment of criminals, if occasionally we have to put a man out of the way by discreetly hanging him, we never subject him to the degradation of a ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James

... task. The person, that passed betwixt us, knows this to be true; and Mr Lee himself, I am sure, will not disown it; So that I did not "seduce him to join with me," as the malicious authors of the Reflections are pleased to call it; but Mr Lee's loyalty is above so ridiculous a slander. I know very well, that the town did ignorantly call and take this to be my play; but I shall not arrogate to myself the merits of my friend. Two-thirds of it belonged to him; and to me only the first scene of the play; the whole fourth act, and the first half, or somewhat ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... Richelieu, when it was the Palais Cardinal? Not read 'Le Grand Cyrus,' and on the score of morality! Why, this most delightful book was written by one of the most moral women in Paris—one of the chastest—against whose reputation no word of slander has ever been breathed! It must, indeed, be confessed that Sapho is of an ugliness which would protect her even were she not guarded by the aegis of genius. She is one of those fortunate unfortunates who can walk through the furnace of a Court unscathed, and leave a reputation for modesty ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... clearness, conciseness and sublimity betray his master hand. I have heard that he died of smallpox—he had not been vaccinated; it will be remembered—but I consider it my duty to protect him from any such slander. A genius does not die; otherwise it wouldn't be worth while to be born a genius. Still, if Klaas had died like other people, his spirit would have lived in those coming after him. And that is ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli

... belief in God, belief in good!"—answered Angus, with some passion—"Not perpetual scheming, suspicion of motives, personal slander, and pettiness—O Lord!—such pettiness as can hardly be believed! Journalism is the most educational force in the world, but its power is being put to ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... Another slander spread by Wood and his emissaries is, that by opposing him we discover an inclination to "shake off our dependence upon the crown of England." Pray observe how important a person is this same William Wood, and how the public weal of two kingdoms is ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift

... hundreds of others, as shallow-pated as himself, had been made to believe such was the case, and vituperation being the easiest of all ignoble occupations, they had probably done their best to circulate the paltry slander. Lord Elgin, however, needs no goose-quill defender; the unprecedented increasing prosperity of the colony under his administration is the most valuable testimony he could desire. It is not every governor who, on his arrival, finding a colony in confusion and rebellion, has the satisfaction, ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... knows nothing about the matter; that he has not honestly read the writings of these men. I say that the Psalmist who wrote Ps. 119, was a man, on his own shewing, intensely open to the feeling of shame, and felt intensely what men said of him; felt intensely slander and insult. We talk of independent and true patriots now-a-days. I will tell you of four of the noblest patriots the world ever saw, who were men of that stamp. I say that Isaiah was such a man; that Jeremiah was such a man; ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley

... soothe him better than a skilled man who is a stranger could. So it has been with Barclay. While Russia was well, a foreigner could serve her and be a splendid minister; but as soon as she is in danger she needs one of her own kin. But in your Club they have been making him out a traitor! They slander him as a traitor, and the only result will be that afterwards, ashamed of their false accusations, they will make him out a hero or a genius instead of a traitor, and that will be still more unjust. He is an ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... is at hand. She said that she had nursed an old gentleman, ill of catarrh of the bladder, and left to die by his children, who thought that he had nothing left. His bequest to her, a life annuity of a thousand francs, was periodically disputed by his heirs, who mingled slander with their persecutions. In spite of the ravages of conflicting passions, her face retained some traces of its former fairness and fineness of tissue, some vestiges of the physical charms of her youth ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac

... to believe certain bold tongues, he made his wife extremely unhappy, although she was the most beautiful woman of the neighborhood. Perhaps, indeed, she was rather silly. But the prying of friends, the slander of enemies, and the gossip of acquaintances, had never succeeded in laying bare the interior of that household. Doctor Rouget was a man of whom we say in common parlance, "He is not pleasant to deal with." Consequently, ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... infamy. Those who were able, protected themselves best by contempt both of the false and true accusations, and by brilliant and joyous display. More sensitive natures sank into utter despair when they found themselves deeply involved in guilt, and still more deeply in slander. In course of time calumny became universal, and the strictest virtue was most certain of all to challenge the attacks of malice. Of the great pulpit orator, Fra Egidio of Viterbo, whom Leo made a cardinal on account of his merits, and who showed ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... newspaper scruples not at any slander. It may be that, to escape the grip of the law, the paragraphs will be nicely worded, so that the suspicion is thrown out and the damage done without any exposure to the law. Year by year, thousands of men are crushed by the ink-roller. ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage

... hate to slander a man who can never defend himself," she replied finally. "But—I have sometimes thought ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer

... sun just then began to emerge from the eclipse. He opened the letter, scarce knowing what he did; the ink was faded and pale, but perfectly legible, for it had been in a dry place. The letter said that having tried in vain to get speech with him, and having faced all the vile slander and bitter remarks of the village for his sake, she had at last resolved to write and tell him that she was really and truly his own. In a moment of folly she had, indeed, accepted the locket, but that was all, and since the discovery ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies

... was what they threatened me with. 'Hell,' they tried to warn me. "'How do you know?' I came back at 'em. 'How do you know? Maybe there's been slander here. Maybe it's not so hot. Maybe it's only semitropical!' And they couldn't beat that. They couldn't even tie it. But they went right ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans

... did not put an end to the gossip, and slander went on increasing about the unlucky Fairoaks' family. Glanders (H.P.), a retired cavalry officer, whose half-pay and large family compelled him to fuddle himself with brandy-and-water instead of claret after ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... over our cabbages, like the world's slander over a good name. You may kill them, it is true, but there is the ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... theory of such liability, or are the cases in which it exists simply to be enumerated, and to be explained each on its special ground, as is easy to believe from the fact that the right of action for certain well known classes of wrongs like trespass or slander has its special history for each class? I think that the law regards the infliction of temporal damage by a responsible person as actionable, if under the circumstances known to him the danger of his act is manifest according to common ...
— The Path of the Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

... the Prince, with thundering voice, springing toward Leuchtmar and grasping his shoulders with both hands. Glaring fiercely upon him, he repeated, "Desist, I tell you, Leuchtmar, desist, and recall what you have just said, for it is a libel, a slander!" ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... craftiness. With some he dissembled; others he attached to himself by conferring obligations upon them, led by a desire for vainglory; but to all he manifested how he stood toward the heathen religion. And first, in order to slander Constantius and condemn him as cruel toward his subjects among the people generally, he recalled the exiled bishops and restored to them their confiscated estates. He next commanded suitable agents to open the pagan temples without delay. Then he directed that those who had ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... a vindictive and malignant opposition to every thing for the sake of 'the party' can be carried, has been well illustrated in the amount and variety of slander which has been heaped by the Southern-rights, sympathizing Democratic press on the efforts of those noble-hearted women who have endeavored to do something to alleviate the condition of the thousands of contrabands, who are many without clothes, employment, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various

... keep a well-scrapit tongue in his head," said Elspeth, "and not slander the kin of any body that quarters at Glendearg; forby, that Sir Piercie Shafton is much respected with the holy fathers of the community, and they will make up to us ony fasherie that we may have with him, either by good word or good deed, I'se warrant them. He ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... this connection, was a vague word. The whole thing sounded like an opinion uttered by a cautious person mindful of actions for slander. ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad

... are transported by calamity, Thither where more attends you; and you slander The helms o' the state, who care for you like fathers, When you ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... is interesting and valuable although the author sometimes goes astray in paying too much attention to biased writers like W. H. Thomas and H. W. Odum who have taken it upon themselves to vilify and slander the Negro race. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various

... slander may now at you point, That finger will soon lose the strength of its joint; And those who now plead for the rights of the slave, Will soon be acknowledged ...
— The Anti-Slavery Harp • Various

... that in this shrine lie hid Stories that Satan from his mouth would spew; Wild tales that men in hell tell hoarsely—speak! Saint and Deliverer! Should I slander you?' ...
— The Wild Knight and Other Poems • Gilbert Chesterton

... and lock him up!" said De Launay, calmly. "I accuse him of public indecency, spreading scandal and criminal slander. He has said that I, the General de Launay, was kicked out of the army for unmentioned crimes. I will prefer charges ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter

... tol' Hannibal she didn' b'liebe a wud he said, en call' 'im a low-down nigger who wuz tryin' ter slander Jeff 'ca'se he wuz mo' luckier'n he wuz. But all de same, she couldn' keep her min' fum runnin' on w'at Hannibal had said. She 'membered she'd heared one er de niggers say dey wuz a gal ober at Mars' ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various

... their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware of them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!" cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. "Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! And bide ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens

... said that the Bernardine and he had been acquainted when young, somewhere off in foreign lands. Robak often came by night to the tavern, and consulted secretly with the Jew about important matters; they said that the Monk was smuggling goods, but this was a slander ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... M. D'Effernay. How can you slander the character of that upright young man? If Hallberg were so unhappy ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... slander was too much. With a little cat-like yowl she went for him, dropping the broken photograph ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... do but use his f-f-family influence to g-git out a warrant for the preacher and his m-managers, on the ground of f-false imprisonment and s-slander! Lorenzo Dow got over into Maryland s-safe from the warrant, but our p-presiding elder was p-put in jail till he could p-pay two thousand dollars fine. It almost beggared the poor Methodies of that day to raise so much money, but g-glory be to G-god! we can raise it now any day in the year, ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... to be admitted at all sorts of hours. Reed Opdyke accepted him in mirthful gratitude to the Providence which had arranged so equable a quid pro quo. Prather was manifestly out for copy, despite his constant disavowals of what he termed an envious slander hatched by Philistine minds. Reed Opdyke's sense of humour was still sufficiently acute to assure him that there was every possibility that, at some more or less remote period, he would find a full-length portrait of himself in Prather's pages, a portrait all ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... sir, these folks are broad-mouthed where I spake of one too much in favor, as they esteem. I think ye guess whom they named; if ye do not, I will upon my next letters write further. To tell you what I conceive; as I count the slander most false, so a young princess cannot be too wary what countenance or familiar demonstration she maketh, more to one than another. I judge no man's service in the realm worth the entertainment with such a tale of obloquy, or occasion of speech ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... bed, a glass of wine, and cheerfulness at home. He did not admire fine wits, good jests or criticism, because it easily turns to slander, and he would laugh at the folly of men reading newspapers which, in his opinion, always lied and constantly repeated the same things. He asserted that nothing was more troublesome than incertitude, and therefore he condemned thought because it gives birth ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... love to Pompey, than for any particular enmity to him. But Cato, being allied to Lucullus, who had married his sister Servilia, and also thinking it a great injustice, opposed Memmius, thereby exposing himself to much slander and misrepresentation, insomuch that they would have turned him out of his office, pretending that he used his power tyrannically. Yet at length Cato so far prevailed against Memmius, that he was forced to let fall the accusations, and abandon the contest. ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth and right; Ring in the ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... immoral in another because of change in social conditions. As society progresses, as different elements come to the front because of the march of civilization, so the acts that are detrimental to the good of the whole must change. To-day slander and stealing a man's good name are quite as immoral as stealing his property. Acts that injure the mental and spiritual development of the group are even more immoral than those which interfere with the ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy

... go next and tell somebody that old Rushton is an ill-natured huncks, without conscience or proper feeling; that he grumbled with you for stopping a moment to greet your friends. If you say any such thing," added Mr. Rushton, scowling at the young man, "you will be guilty of as base a slander—yes, sir! as base a ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke

... exceeds mohair. 170 Forbid it, Heaven! a favour or a debt She e'er should cancel—but she may forget. Safe is your secret still in Chloe's ear; But none of Chloe's shall you ever hear. Of all her dears she never slander'd one, But cares not if a thousand are undone. Would Chloe know if you're alive or dead? She bids her footman put it in her head. Chloe is prudent—would you, too, be wise? Then never break your ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope

... partly had procured through his perswasions, to leaue their natiue countrey, and vndertake that voyage, and that some enemies to him and the action at his returne into England would not spare to slander falsly both him and the action, by saying, hee went to Virginia, but politikely, and to no other end but to leade so many into a countrey, in which hee neuer meant to stay himselfe, and there to leaue them behind him. (M317) Also he alleaged, that seeing ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt

... the heads of gentlemen, to make intrigues, to slander others before the press reporters, to go gallivanting all about town . . . for that you have time!" ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont

... provocation. One would not have thought that Romulus would have flown into such a passion during a grave deliberation on matters of state; while Theseus was misled, in his treatment of his son, by love and jealousy and a woman's slander, influences which few men are able to withstand. And what is more, Romulus's fury resulted in actual deeds of unfortunate result; whereas the anger of Theseus spent itself in words and an old man's curses, and the youth seems to have owed the rest of his suffering to chance; so here, at any ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... motives of Lady Susan's conduct, and removes all the blame which has been so lavished on her, may also convince us how little the general report of anyone ought to be credited; since no character, however upright, can escape the malevolence of slander. If my sister, in the security of retirement, with as little opportunity as inclination to do evil, could not avoid censure, we must not rashly condemn those who, living in the world and surrounded with temptations, should be ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... people of Paris, wearied as they are of novelty and excitement. As far as one can judge, it does not seem that the lower orders take much interest in this marriage; the ambition and vanity of his partisans have been wounded by it, and, of course, his enemies do not scruple to calumniate and slander the unfortunate object ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... rumour that in Kosciuszko's youth he had intended to run off with Ludwika Sosnowska had got to the ears of Tekla's father. Certain enemies of Kosciuszko's did their best to slander him yet further. The result was a scene of the sort more familiar a hundred and odd years ago than now: a girl throwing herself weeping at the feet of an enraged parent, the wrath of the father dissolving into tears, but his ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner

... so well with our fugitive in other places. An evil slander about the Baptist was spread abroad—that he was a glutton and a wine-bibber! Jesus heard of it, and said: "John the Baptist fasted. They said of him that he was possessed by a demon. It is neither eating nor fasting that they object to in the prophets; ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger

... sentences in the merely automatic sense of promote; to encourage poetry means merely to advance or assist poetry. But to encourage poetry means properly to put courage into poetry—a fine idea. Take the fourth word, "holidays." As long as that word remains, it will always answer the ignorant slander which asserts that religion was opposed to human cheerfulness; that word will always assert that when a day is holy it should also be happy. Properly spelt, these words all tell a sublime story, like Westminster Abbey. Phonetically spelt, they might lose the last traces ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton

... not true, by all that's good," said Don Quixote in high wrath, turning upon him angrily, as his way was; "and it is a very great slander, or rather villainy. Queen Madasima was a very illustrious lady, and it is not to be supposed that so exalted a princess would have made free with a quack; and whoever maintains the contrary lies ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... . . disloyalty and unscrupulousness! What have you ever done to make me loyal? You have no grip on this country. I had to take care of myself, and when I asked for protection I was met with threats and contempt, and had Arab slander thrown in my face. I! a ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad

... was thus enabled to be the darling and admiration of the Court"—(Julian internally stood self-exculpated from the suspicion)—"and yet it is better to possess fewer means of distinction, and remain free from the backbiting, the slander, and the odium, which are always the share of Court favour. Men who had no other cause, cast reflections upon me because my size varied somewhat from the common proportion; and jests were sometimes unthinkingly passed ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... not lack The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose, nor The azured harebell like thy veins; no, nor The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander Outsweetened not ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... at the English Court' had sufficient reasons for clouding his sunny picture of the statesman with the assertion that he was "something of a libertine." But there are occasions when prudence counsels us to pay attention to slander. ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... Autumn A Sunset Farewell By the Lake The Teacher Grace Darling The Indian Lines on the North-West Rebellion Louis Riel Ye Patriot Sons of Canada A Hero's Decision John and Jane The Truant Boy A Swain to his Sweetheart The Fisherman's Wife The Diamond and the Pebble Temptation Slander Woman Sympathy Love and Wine. How Nature's Beauties Should be Viewed To a Canary The School-Taught Youth A Dream A Snow Storm To Nova Scotia The Huntsman and His Hound The Maple Tree The Pine Tree A Sabbath ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young

... rich an example; to the wretched a comforter; to the prosperous an ornament; her piety went hand in hand with her benevolence, and she thanked her Creator for being permitted to do good. A being so gentle and so virtuous, slander might wound but not dishonor. Even death, when he tore her from the arms of husband, could but transport to the ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... preserved from the grave of oblivion. The splendor of your fame," he adds, "needs no commendation, more than the sune does to a candle; and even a little of the truth from me may be obnoxious to the slander of flattery, or partiality, by reason of my interest in it. Therefore I'll say the less; only this is generally known for a truth, that justice, loyaltie, and prudence, which have been but incident virtues and qualities ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson

... we, therefore, may fairly be equally apathetic respecting it. It would not, however, be difficult to foretell his fate. Should he not break his neck before his father's death, he will quarrel with and slander his brother; he will ride for those who are young and green enough to trust their horses to him, and pay him for mounting them; he will spunge upon all his acquaintance till he is turned out of their houses; he will be a hanger on at the Curragh ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... nor clever murders, nor lewdness, incest, adultery, or other crimes of which we accuse one another, can be found. They accuse themselves of ingratitude and malignity when any one denies a lawful satisfaction to another, of indolence, of sadness, of anger, of scurrility, of slander, and of lying, which curseful thing they thoroughly hate. Accused persons undergoing punishment are deprived of the common table, and other honours, until the judge thinks that they ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... being grown hath two ills to fear—Death and Marriage; and of these twain is Marriage the more vile; for in Death we may find rest, but in Marriage, should it fail us, we must find hell. Nay, being above the breath of common slander that enviously would blast those who of true virtue will not consent to stretch affection's links, I love, Harmachis; ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard

... said that a persecution made up of defamation, proscription and slander may be as hard to hear as that which issues in bonds and imprisonments; and this these early Disciples had to bear. But the world was ripe for reformation, and the cause spread ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler

... 'Light profits me, but how does it profit thee?' Youth is a crown of roses, old age a crown of thorns. Many preach well, but do not practise well. It is the punishment of liars, that men don't listen to them when they speak truth. Every man who is proud is an idolater. To slander is to murder. Whosoever humbles himself, God exalts him; whosoever exalts himself, God humbles him. Men see every leprosy except their own. He who daily looks after his property finds a coin. The post does ...
— Hebrew Literature

... Reputation, like all possessions, fairer in the hope than the reality, shone before me in the gloss of novelty; and I had neither felt the envy it excites, the weariness it occasions, nor (worse than all) that coarse and painful notoriety, that, something between the gossip and the slander, which attends every man whose writings become known,—surrendering the ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... in which the feeblest of cases is worked up to a verdict of guilty is a trifle ridiculous, and a slander on judge, bar, and even ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward

... you, sir, that you should question my words?" And again the Marquis eyed the Squire from head to foot, leaving the room with a majestic strut as Gilmore went on to assert that the allegation made, with the sense implied by it, contained a wicked and a malicious slander. Then there were some words, much quieter than those preceding them, between Mr. Gilmore and Sir Thomas, in which the Squire pledged himself to,—he hardly knew what, and Sir Thomas promised to hold his tongue,—for the present. But, as a matter of ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... feels that he is at perfect liberty to conceal his real thoughts and to give utterance to such distortions of truth as may not compromise him with others. The penalty for slander is so great that this is a fault that is seldom committed. Hence to get the truth from a Manbo, it is useless, as a rule, to question him singly or even in the presence of his friends alone. He must be brought face to face with those who hold ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... slander Proteus and Thetis, neither let any one, either in tragedy or in any other kind of poetry, introduce Here disguised in the likeness of ...
— The Republic • Plato

... and baffled here: Pierced to the soul with slander's venom'd spear; The which no Balm can cure, but his heart-blood Which breathed ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe

... nothing recouer againe." Whether this story be true of any one is perhaps doubtful, and, if true of a Barclay, we are convinced that he is not our author. It may have arisen as we have seen from a mistake as to identity. But apart from the question of identity, we have nothing in support of the slander but Bale's "foul-mouthed" assertion, while against it we have the whole tenor and aim of Barclay's published writings. Everywhere he inculcates the highest and purest morality, and where even for that purpose he might be led into descriptions of vice, ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt

... Rick agreed. "It wouldn't do to get the government all steamed up over nothing. Besides, unless we could prove it, we'd be laying ourselves open to a charge of slander. Well, let's go see if Mom can scrape up a sandwich, and then get ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine

... preceding discourse, I called attention to the fact that the opponents of Calvinism are frequently charged with misunderstanding through ignorance, or grossly misrepresenting it. I read passages from several, charging us with calumny, defamation, slander, and even blasphemy. ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson

... of the Press, they became like boys released from school and its strict discipline. The brutal excesses of language in the Parisian newspapers, the fierceness of their attacks upon the Government, and the shamelessness of their slander, alarmed the emperor and the best of his personal adherents, who had been by no means supporters of his policy. But though the experiment gave signs of never being likely to succeed, and no one seemed pleased with the ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer

... of destruction, viz. that of falling into the hands of cannibals and savages, who would have seized on me with the same view as I would on a goat or a turtle, and have thought it no more a crime to kill and devour me, than I did of a pigeon or curlew. I would unjustly slander myself, if I should say I was not sincerely thankful to my great Preserver, to whose singular protection I acknowledged, with great humility, all these unknown deliverances were due, and without which I must inevitably have fallen into their ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe

... five worst maladies that afflict the female mind are indocility, discontent, slander, jealousy and silliness. These five maladies infest seven or eight out of every ten women, and it is from these that arises the inferiority of ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe

... depths of their souls by that accusation. Mrs. Clara T. Leonard, the writer of this letter, came forward and informed the people that she had been one of the board who had managed that institution for years, that she knew all about it through and through, that the accusation was false and a slander; and before her word and her character the charge of that distinguished governor went down and sunk into merited ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.

... There were a dozen permissible attitudes, and, the characteristic features might be represented with all fidelity; but there were boundaries that might not be overstepped. The result was an artistic perversion that well-nigh perpetrated a grotesque slander on the personal appearance of ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... revealed her graceful figure. She entered with a smile, and walking up to the side of the table where Thaddeus was standing, inquired after his friend's health. He answered her in a voice unusually agitated. All that he had been told by the countess of her favorable opinion of him, and the slander he had just heard from Diana's lover, were at once present in ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... mordant wit, and a mastery of tactics unfamiliar to the minds and capacities of Englishmen, made him a great factor in the wide world of haute politique; but it also drew upon him a wealth of secret hatred and outward attention. His follies were lashed by the tongues of virtue and of slander; but his abilities gave him a commanding place in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... lamentable turn which events have taken, many of the enthusiasts for freedom go so far as to slander Lafayette. How far a man can go astray in this direction is shown by the book of Belmontet, which is also an attack on the well-known pamphlet by Chateaubriand, and in which the Republic is advocated with commendable freedom. I would here cite the bitter passages against Lafayette ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... have loved thee fondly, ever Preferr'd thee to the choicest wine; From thee my lips they could not sever By saying thou contain'dst strychnine. Did I believe the slander? Never! I held ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... warned that we have recently formed a Society for the Protection of Reputations, models' and actresses' in particular. It was McAllister's idea. You now have the honour of being in the headquarters, the committee-room of the society, and anything like slander, or even truth, will ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... bitter enmity, wherewith he inflames his followers against the Church. Particularly does he incite them against those in the ministry, leading them to close watch at all times for material available for purposes of slander. ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther

... the French monarch had falsely sent him a warning that it was useless to trust the King of England, who only intended to break his treaties; and when Richard refused to believe that his former friend would so slander him, showed him the very letters in which Philippe offered to assist in ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... him in her arms. "Oh!" she continued, "it is an infamous slander! These people never saw your father, they have only been here six years, and this is the eighth since he went away, but this is abominable! We were married in that church, we came at once to live in this house, which was my marriage portion, and my ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... great indignation answered "I am sorry, Lady Honoria, you can find any amusement in listening to such idle scandal, which those who tell will never respect you for hearing. In times less daring in slander, the character of Mortimer would have proved to him a shield from all injurious aspersions; yet who shall wonder he could not escape, and who shall contemn the inventors of calumny, if Lady Honoria Pemberton condescends to be entertained ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... chaste, never committing adultery or fornication, and he must not marry, or contract himself to any woman, during his apprenticeship. He must be obedient to the Master without argument or murmuring, respectful to all Free-masons, courteous, avoiding obscene or uncivil speech, free from slander, dissension, or dispute. He must not haunt or frequent any tavern or ale-house, or so much as go into them except it be upon an errand of the Master or with his consent, using neither cards, dice, nor any unlawful game, "Christmas time excepted." He must not steal anything ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton

... slander him," said Rose. "I know him better than he knows himself, and I will not permit one word ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin

... what you're getting at now. Our friend has been trying to set Miss Trevert against me, eh? But why? I don't even know this man Jeekes except to have nodded 'Good-morning' to him a few times. Why on earth should he of all men go out of his way to slander me to Miss ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine

... does hotly woo, Did ever fight, in our best victory. Another is mistook Through his deceitful likeness to his look! Let be, let be: Why should I clear myself, why answer thou for me? That shaft of slander shot Miss'd only the right blot. I see the shame They cannot see: 'Tis very just they blame The ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore



Words linked to "Slander" :   speech act, charge, drag through the mud, traducement, malign, attack, obloquy, accuse, libel, traduce, assassinate, calumniation, badmouth, mud, hatchet job



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com