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backbiting

noun

Etymology

From Middle English bakbitynge, bacbiting, bacbitung, equivalent to backbite + -ing.

  1. inherited from bakbitynge

Definitions

  1. The action of slandering a person without that person's knowledge.

    • […]ending his epistle by saying, "that his uncle having doubtless lent his ear to some old woman's tales and backbiting, he did not choose to place his property in the hands of a spendthrift,[…]
    • She was not given to backbiting—though, when stirred by any motive near to her own belongings, she would say an illnatured word or two.

  2. Slanderous or speaking badly, especially of a person without that person's knowledge.

    • Backbiting talk that flattering blabs know wily how to blenge.
    • Am I to have a backbiting wife?
    • If the world’s premier A.I. start-up can so easily plunge into crisis over backbiting behavior and slippery ideas of wrongdoing, can it be trusted to advance a technology that may have untold effects on billions of people?

  3. present participle and gerund of backbite

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for backbiting. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA