as in slander
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Recent Examples of backbiting
Sadly, Sister Wives has really become an experience of criticism and backbiting.
—
Liza Esquibias, PEOPLE, 28 Sep. 2025
The industry functions on a delicate infrastructure of intimidation, backbiting, and the occasional contract amid endless favors, yanking Aasmaan through its machinations like a rag doll in the wind.
—Proma Khosla, IndieWire, 19 Sep. 2025
The Girlfriend does not pretend all of this plotting and backbiting isn’t soapy nonsense.
—Angie Han, HollywoodReporter, 9 Sep. 2025
Liza Esquibias, PEOPLE, 28 Sep. 2025
The industry functions on a delicate infrastructure of intimidation, backbiting, and the occasional contract amid endless favors, yanking Aasmaan through its machinations like a rag doll in the wind.
—Proma Khosla, IndieWire, 19 Sep. 2025
The Girlfriend does not pretend all of this plotting and backbiting isn’t soapy nonsense.
—Angie Han, HollywoodReporter, 9 Sep. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for backbiting
Noun
-
Some of his personal attacks warrant lawsuits for slander.—
D. Scott Schmid,
Denver Post,
22 Sep. 2025
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Kerry Washington isn't here for any Julia Stiles dance slander.—
Lauren Huff,
Entertainment Weekly,
17 Sep. 2025
Noun
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The Sermon on the ‘Mount episode also represented, amid the resulting furor on the right, a canny announcement that the collected calumnies of creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are finally available on the Paramount Plus streaming service, after years licensed on Warner Bros.—
David Bloom,
Forbes.com,
28 July 2025
-
That’s when his ugly-American calumny turned to blather.—
Armond White,
National Review,
28 May 2025
Noun
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Last week, a filing in the defamation case against Powell also showed the parties seeking voluntary dismissal.—
Olivia Rubin,
ABC News,
27 Sep. 2025
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In a statement shared with The Guardian, a spokesperson for Ferguson said the duchess felt compelled to send the email after Epstein allegedly threatened to sue her for defamation over her comments to the Standard.—
Jon Blistein,
Rolling Stone,
26 Sep. 2025
Noun
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Apart from the libel suits, which the President can add teeth to by threatening regulatory sanctions or by slow-walking mergers and other business deals that require government approval, this is the persecution of people and organizations based on point of view.—
Louis Menand,
New Yorker,
26 Sep. 2025
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Ressa knows a thing or two about fighting a government that is trying to silence the free press; in the Philippines, she was arrested and later found guilty of libel due to the fact that Rappler was critical of then-President Rodrigo Duterte.—
Michael Schneider,
Variety,
18 Sep. 2025
Noun
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That's despite calls from agency staff for Kennedy to tone down such rhetoric after a gunman—who was influenced by vaccine misinformation and the vilification of the public health agency—sprayed the CDC campus with over 500 rounds and killed a local police officer last month.—
Beth Mole,
ArsTechnica,
4 Sep. 2025
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What often characterizes anything YIMBY in housing is a strange vilification of single-family typology as racist or classist and proposals heavy on tweaking and fussing with local land use and housing codes without addressing the feasibility and financing of housing.—
Roger Valdez,
Forbes.com,
4 Sep. 2025
Noun
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The Fed’s achievements in stabilizing markets during the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid pandemic, and in bringing down inflation while avoiding recession in recent years, deserve praise rather than disparagement.—
Bill Dudley,
Twin Cities,
16 Aug. 2025
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Patel had sought $10 million in damages on claims of defamation, injurious falsehood and business disparagement.—
Dan Mangan,
CNBC,
15 Aug. 2025
Noun
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The entire point of declaring some rock cool is to cast further aspersions on the actual popular rock bands at the time.—
Brittany Spanos,
Rolling Stone,
21 July 2025
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Any aspersions for the prevalence of fake Louis Vuitton should be cast on Canal Street in New York, not in France.—
Marcus Thompson II,
The Athletic,
22 Jan. 2025
Noun
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The human costs of this are the increasing rates of illnesses and the financial costs of health care, lost productivity, and the compounding problems of further environmental denigration.—
Suwanna Gauntlett Upjohn,
Forbes.com,
29 Aug. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Backbiting.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/backbiting. Accessed 5 Oct. 2025.
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