Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word
badmouth. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
badmouth, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
badmouth in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
badmouth you have here. The definition of the word
badmouth will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition of
badmouth, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
Calque of a Mande term, perhaps Vai or Mandinka , which entered English via Gullah . Compare Japanese 悪口 (waruguchi, “badmouthing”), which is a compound of 悪 (waru, “bad, wicked”) and 口 (kuchi, “mouth”).
Pronunciation
Verb
badmouth (third-person singular simple present badmouths, present participle badmouthing, simple past and past participle badmouthed)
- (informal, transitive) To criticize or malign, especially unfairly or spitefully.
1987 August 30, Benedict Nightingale, “Theater: England's Endless Love Affair with Farce”, in The New York Times, retrieved 22 July 2013:[…] those cross-Atlantic aficionados who persistently idolize the British theater and bad-mouth Broadway.
2023 December 9, Tripp Mickle, Cade Metz, Mike Isaac, Karen Weise, “Inside OpenAI’s Crisis Over the Future of Artificial Intelligence”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:He also believed that Mr. Altman was bad-mouthing the board to OpenAI executives, two people with knowledge of the situation said.
Translations
to criticize or malign, especially unfairly or spitefully
References
- ^ “badmouth”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
- ^ Smitherman, Geneva (1977), Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black America (Boston: Houghton Mifflin)
- ^ The Atlantic World, 1450-2000 (2008), →ISBN, page 58