as in defamation
the making of false statements that damage another's reputation
public maligning of a person can actually be grounds for a lawsuit
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
as in smearing
to make untrue and harmful statements about
a candidate who believes that it is possible to win an election without maligning anyone
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
as in insulting
Related Words
Dissimilar Words
Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for maligning
Noun
-
Nonetheless, as Push told GQ, his label and their parent label were concerned about the optics of two of Drizzy’s foes linking up amid the ongoing defamation lawsuit.—
Armon Sadler,
VIBE.com,
24 June 2025 -
Shawe, not one to stay out of the courts, sued the lawyer representing the class, Jeremiah Frei-Pearson, for defamation in May 2024.—
Phoebe Liu,
Forbes.com,
23 June 2025
Adjective
-
Conversations revealed an ongoing dialogue that was not only deeply insulting to Read, but morally offensive to women broadly.—
Gemma Allen,
Forbes.com,
25 June 2025
-
Trump’s orders are insulting to state and local officials, but especially to the Marines.—
Tom Zirpoli,
Baltimore Sun,
17 June 2025
Noun
-
On New Year’s Eve, Baldoni sued The New York Times for $250 million for libel over their initial story about Lively’s allegations.—
Zack Sharf,
Variety,
2 May 2025
-
This group also advises on libel, intellectual property, and other concerns relating to content.—
Harrison Richlin,
IndieWire,
1 May 2025
Adjective
-
The 2023 Economic Report Of The President published in March of 2023 was relatively disparaging of cryptoassets and DLTs.—
Lawrence Wintermeyer,
Forbes,
5 Dec. 2024
-
Prior to appearing on Cunningham's show on Monday, Huggins made more disparaging remarks about Xavier.—
Emily DeLetter,
The Enquirer,
10 May 2023
Adjective
-
Utilities can ask similar questions about households with pool pumps or those that show signs of inefficient or degrading appliances.—
Abhay Gupta,
Forbes.com,
20 June 2025
-
But while the Internet is torn over whether Carpenter’s submissive position on the Man’s Best Friend cover is funny or degrading, Whoopi Goldberg was more concerned with something else.—
Hannah Dailey,
Billboard,
12 June 2025
Adjective
-
But the racial order of the day also made these jobs, which were physically challenging to begin with, especially demeaning, humiliating, and fraught with danger.—
Matthew Wills,
JSTOR Daily,
21 June 2025
-
Being high and coerced into this demeaning lifestyle.—
Patrick Ryan,
USA Today,
11 June 2025
Verb
-
Poor data quality can provide wrong models and alerts, discrediting predictive monitoring.—
Hrushikesh Deshmukh,
Forbes,
24 Feb. 2025
-
Johnson released new guidelines for reporting gifts Wednesday after discrediting the investigation.—
Jake Sheridan,
Chicago Tribune,
14 Feb. 2025
Adjective
-
In recent weeks, though, her group has doubled in size, and while in the past there were only two or three posts per day, Mitchell and her new moderators now have to wade through 60-plus comments ranging from helpful to libelous.—
Brenna Ehrlich,
Rolling Stone,
25 Apr. 2025
-
In Britain, Musk has called for the release of Tommy Robinson, a far-right extremist who was jailed for 18 months in October for repeating a libelous claim about a Syrian refugee schoolboy attacking girls.—
Kim Hjelmgaard,
USA TODAY,
7 Jan. 2025
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Cite this Entry
“Maligning.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/maligning. Accessed 3 Jul. 2025.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
Share