Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To attack the character or reputation of; speak ill of; defame.
- transitive verb To disparage; belittle: synonym: disparage.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To blacken; make black.
- Blackened; turned black.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To blacken thoroughly; to make very black.
- transitive verb rare Fig.: To blacken or sully; to defame.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb transitive To
criticise so as tobesmirch ;traduce ,disparage ordefame . - verb transitive To treat as
worthless ;belittle ,degrade ordisparage . - verb rare To
blacken .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb charge falsely or with malicious intent; attack the good name and reputation of someone
- verb cause to seem less serious; play down
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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BTW, what the heck does my being black have to do with use of the word denigrate, when that word describes what I mean to say?
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I often do that ... but please quote where I "denigrate" Cao's (possible) naivete of the political establishment (which I actually consider to be a personal virtue, btw) and please quote where I call into question this guy's "sanity"?
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In Venezuela, it is illegal to publish news accountsthat might be deemed to "denigrate" President Hugo Ch vez.
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KURTZ: But Obama does this a lot, where he takes these swipes at cable television and the pundits, and you can tell that he likes to try to stake out a middle ground and kind of denigrate the press in the process, which is his right.
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KURTZ: But Obama does this a lot, where he takes these swipes at cable television and the pundits, and you can tell that he likes to try to stake out a middle ground and kind of denigrate the press in the process, which is his right.
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To that extent and to the extent that he thought the Khmer Rouge considered Phnom Penh "Sodom and Gomorrah" Sampson did indeed "denigrate" the food imperative of the evacuation.
Good Luck Sailor 2009
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And, clearly, that's -- that's really a-- a way to kind of denigrate these cultures and these religions by justifying these really heinous acts in this way.
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As a matter of fact, they kind of denigrate the whole idea of tankless heaters:
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Mr. Stollery Liberal Senator agreed that there is a campaign in Canada to "denigrate" UN operations.
Archive 2006-03-01 2006
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Hundreds of people have been arrested under the same section of the law, which also makes it an offence to "denigrate" the 79-year - old dictator, under whose rule since 1980 one of the most prosperous economies in Africa has been brought to its knees.
mohitanand commented on the word denigrate
verb: charge falsely or with malicious intent; attack the good name and reputation of someone
Count Rumford denigrated the new theory of heat, demonstrating that it was wholly inadequate to explain the observations.
October 19, 2016