Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Containing or implying calumny; slanderous or defamatory.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Using calumny; containing or implying calumny; injurious to reputation; slanderous: as, “calumnious knave,” ; “calumnious mis-statements,”

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

  • adjective Containing or implying calumny; false, malicious, and injurious to reputation; slanderous.

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

  • adjective possessing the traits of calumny

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

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Late Latin calumniōsus.

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Examples

  • 'calumnious' to-day must pass as veracious with triumph another day: gods and men have declared that Sansculottism cannot be.

    The French Revolution Thomas Carlyle 1838

  • "The plaintiff's lawyers never had support for their calumnious accusations against the Holy See," he added.

    Vatican Releases Files in Bid to Rebut Claims of Coverup Stacy Meichtry 2011

  • Troubling because his pickings while insulting, also border on the calumnious.

    2009 March 02 | NIGEL BEALE NOTA BENE BOOKS 2009

  • Troubling because his pickings while insulting, also border on the calumnious.

    Willful Misreadings and Aspersions at Contra James Wood 2009

  • In an article Saturday in L'Avvennire, the official newspaper of the Italian Bishops Conference, Msgr. Charles J. Scicluna said accusations that the pope had failed to respond quickly to sex-abuse allegations were "calumnious."

    Catholic Officials Defend Benedict XVI David Crawford 2010

  • And this group of heroes, according to Hitchens, was subjected to a "near-unbelievable deluge of abusive and calumnious dreck ...."

    Christopher Hitchens' "Hitch 22": Left? Right? Center? 2010

  • In an article Saturday in L'Avvennire, the official newspaper of the Italian Bishops Conference, Msgr. Charles J. Scicluna said accusations that the pope had failed to respond quickly to sex-abuse allegations were "calumnious."

    Catholic Officials Defend Benedict XVI David Crawford 2010

  • One of them, a poet by profession, considered the term "Christian talibans" (the title of the article as it appeared in Italy) calumnious and filed suit against the author before the municipal tribunal of Zagreb.

    Bernard-Henri Lévy: Predrag Matvejevitch Must Not Go to Prison! 2010

  • In an article Saturday in L'Avvennire, the official newspaper of the Italian Bishops Conference, Msgr. Charles J. Scicluna said accusations that the pope had failed to respond quickly to sex-abuse allegations were "calumnious."

    Catholic Officials Defend Benedict XVI David Crawford 2010

  • In an article Saturday in L'Avvennire, the official newspaper of the Italian Bishops Conference, Msgr. Charles J. Scicluna said accusations that the pope had failed to respond quickly to sex-abuse allegations were "calumnious."

    Catholic Officials Defend Benedict XVI David Crawford 2010

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