Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Slanderous: as, “calumniatory information,”

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Containing calumny; slanderous.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Containing calumny; slanderous.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective (used of statements) harmful and often untrue; tending to discredit or malign

Etymologies

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Examples

  • There are twelve or thirteen of them brought here by him unaccounted for; hear his prevarications in the jail and elsewhere: and if he is an innocent man, cruelly imprisoned under an illegal warrant, and these vile, calumniatory libels, are actually this

    The Trial of Reuben Crandall, M.D. Charged with Publishing and Circulating Seditious and Incendiary Papers, &c. in the District of Columbia, with the Intent of Exciting Servile Insurrection. Carefully Reported, and Compiled from the Written Statements of the Court and the Counsel. Unknown

  • He must divert their sympathy for Ray into distrust of him, and before he had fully considered his words they were spoken, -- crafty, insidious, and calumniatory.

    Marion's Faith. Charles King 1888

  • Covenanters, whilst the grand house was being built from the profits resulting from the sale of writings favouring Popery and persecution, and calumniatory of Scotland's saints and martyrs, had risen from the grave, and banned Scott, his race, and his house, by reading a certain psalm.

    The Romany Rye George Henry Borrow 1842

  • Covenanters, whilst the grand house was being built from the profits resulting from the sale of writings favouring Popery and persecution, and calumniatory of Scotland's saints and martyrs, had risen from the grave, and banned Scott, his race, and his house, by reading a certain psalm.

    The Romany Rye A Sequel to 'Lavengro' George Henry Borrow 1842

  • In my case he found that I was in possession of some information, more than he was aware of, without its being possible for him to decide to what it amounted, whether I had heard a just or unjust, a candid or calumniatory tale.

    Caleb Williams Or Things as They Are William Godwin 1796

  • For an adjective, calumnious has the usage edge over calumniatory; Shakespeare, in Hamlet, had Laertes observe, “Virtue itself ’scapes not calumnious strokes.”

    No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003

  • For an adjective, calumnious has the usage edge over calumniatory; Shakespeare, in Hamlet, had Laertes observe, “Virtue itself ’scapes not calumnious strokes.”

    No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003

  • For an adjective, calumnious has the usage edge over calumniatory; Shakespeare, in Hamlet, had Laertes observe, “Virtue itself ’scapes not calumnious strokes.”

    No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003

  • For an adjective, calumnious has the usage edge over calumniatory; Shakespeare, in Hamlet, had Laertes observe, “Virtue itself ’scapes not calumnious strokes.”

    No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003

  • On the contrary, he grew presumptuous on success; and when he printed his performance, the dedication to the Earl of Norwich was directly levelled against the poet-laureate who termed it the “most arrogant, calumniatory, ill-mannered, and senseless preface he ever saw.” [

    The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Scott, Walter, Sir 1882

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