vituperate

English

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin vituperātus (“censured; disparaged”) + English -ate (suffix forming adjectives with the sense ‘characterized by ’, and forming verbs with the sense ‘to act in ’). Vituperātus is the perfect passive participle of vituperō (“to blame, scold, tell off; to censure; to disparage, find fault with”), from vitium (“blemish, defect, flaw, imperfection; crime, misdeed, wrongdoing; fault, error, sin; vice; disease (of plants)”) (possibly from Proto-Indo-European *(d)wi-tyo- (“apart; wrong”), from *dwóh₁ (“two”)) + parō (“to acquire, get, obtain, procure; to arrange, order; to contrive, design; to furnish, provide; to produce; to decide, resolve”) (from Proto-Indo-European *per- (“to get, procure; to produce; to bring forward; to bring forth, carry forth; to go through”)).

Pronunciation

• Verb:
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /vɪˈtjuːpəɹeɪt/, /vaɪ-/, /-ˈtʃuː-/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

  • (General American) IPA^(key): /vəˈt(j)upəˌɹeɪt/, /vaɪ-/
• Adjective:
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /vɪˈtjuːpəɹət/, /vaɪ-/, /-ˈtʃuː-/, /-ɹeɪt/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

  • (General American) IPA^(key): /vəˈt(j)upəɹət/, /vaɪ-/, /-ˌɹeɪt/
• Hyphenation: vi‧tu‧per‧ate

Verb

vituperate (third-person singular simple present vituperates, present participle vituperating, simple past and past participle vituperated) (formal)

1. (transitive)
   1. To criticize (someone or something) in an abusive or harsh manner.

      Synonyms: berate, scold; see also Thesaurus:criticize

      Antonyms: see Thesaurus:praise

      • 1576, Andrewe Boord [i.e., Andrew Boorde], “Treateth of Fleshe, of Wylde, and Tame Beastes. [Porke, Brawne, Bacon, Pygge.]”, in Here Followeth a Compendious Regiment, or Dietarie of Health. , London: H. Jackson, →OCLC:

        They loue not porke, nor ſwynes fleſh, but doth vituperate and abhore it, yet for all this, they will eate Adders, which is a kind of Serpentes, as well as any other Chriſtyan man dwelling in Roome, and other highe countreys, for Adders fleſhe there, is called fyſhe of the mountayne, this notwithſtanding Phiſicke doeth approbate adders fleſh good to be eaten, […]

      • 1652, S. S, “Amorous Letters. ”, in The Secretaries Studie; Containing New Familiar Epistles. , London: T. H. for John Harrison , →OCLC, page 51:

        [M]y beſt Lady, you knovv, and many better men then he have told you, that I am ſo far from vvronging you vvith a falſhood, that I have maintained your honor vvith the hazzard of my life againſt any that ever durſt vituperate you; […]

      • 1663, Edward Waterhous [i.e., Edward Waterhouse], chapter I, in Fortescutus Illustratus; or A Commentary on that Nervous Treatise De Laudibus Legum Angliæ, Written by Sir John Fortescue Knight, , London: Tho Roycroft for Thomas Dicas , →OCLC, page 33:

        [T]he Rites of conſecrating, or crovvning Kings, and taking Oath of them to perform the Lavvs of their Government, and to maintain the Rites of Holy Church, […] is no lame and lazy Ceremony, made up onely of extern pomp, but of neceſſary and renovvned conſequence; vvhich thoſe that vituperate are Children, and thoſe that vvould overthrovv are Devils; becauſe therein accuſers of antient Piety and Prudence, and enemies to Mankind, vvho generally have the Prieſthood in higheſt honour.

      • 1795 October 31 – November 15, “Observations on the Insults Offered to the Person of His Majesty, in His Way to and Return from the House of Lords”, in The Register of the Times, or, Political Museum: , volume VII, London: C Whittingham, for B. Crosby, , →OCLC, page 137, column 1:

        We are not ignorant that it has long obtained as a principle amongst writers and declaimers of a certain class, to poison as much as they can the public mind, not only by representing royalty in this nation as superfluous and ridiculous, but by vituperating, and vilifying, by every false, ridiculous, and scandalous aspersion within the compass of their gross and sterile imaginations, the person, conduct, public and domestic pursuits of our most gracious monarch.

      • 1832 April 4, “From an Unpublished Romance of the Seventeenth Century. An Interview.—Its Consequences.”, in The Day, a Morning Journal of Literature, Fine Arts, Fashion, &c., number 81, Glasgow: R. & J. Finlay, , →OCLC, page 321:

        ['T]is false as hell, and thou vituperatest thine own sex in saying so, lady. Wert thou the daughter of a king, instead of a proud Popish Knight, I would say so to thy face.

      • 1835, chapter IV, in Blackbeard. A Page from the Colonial History of Philadelphia. , volume I, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, , →OCLC, page 39:

        Bear witness all ye, that Nicolas Salomen vituperateth our goodly fellowship; for this must he needs swallow another goblet.

      • 1882 July, W. L. Watkinson, “An Italian Pessimist”, in Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine, volume VI (6th Series), London: Wesleyan-Methodist Book-Room, , →OCLC, page 503, column 1:

        [Giacomo] Leopardi was not mistaken as to the profound defects and disorders of nature. He vituperates nature in many a bitter satirical passage.

      • 1896, J[ames] E[dward] Muddock, “In the Serpent’s Coils”, in Basile the Jester: A Romance of the Days of Mary Queen of Scots, London: Chatto & Windus, , →OCLC, page 253:

        Thy evil-speaking tongue shall yet cry aloud for pity from the royal lady whom thou now vituperatest. Go to; thou art an unworthy traitor, and shouldst be hanged.

      • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC, page 48:

        Mr. Cooke at once began a tirade against the residents of Asquith for permitting a sandy and generally disgraceful condition of the roads. So roundly did he vituperate the inn management in particular, and with such a loud flow of words, that I trembled lest he should be heard on the veranda.

      • 1997, Elisabeth Crouzet-Pavan, “A Flower of Evil: Young Men in Medieval Italy”, in Camille Naish, transl., edited by Giovanni Levi and Jean-Claude Schmitt, A History of Young People in the West (Ancient and Medieval Rites of Passage), volume 1, Cambridge, Mass., London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, →ISBN, page 185:

        Women remained the central target of restrictions and condemnations. But as the fifteenth century progressed, the giovani, guilty of the same excesses, were vituperated in their turn. Even in the early fourteenth century, regulations took note of luxurious male clothes. Any man past the age of ten was not supposed to wear velvet or silks woven with gold or silver.

   2. To attack (someone or something) with abusive language; to revile, to vilify.
      • 1773, J. R., “An Essay on Envy”, in I Thompson, editor, The Literary Register: Or, Weekly Miscellany. , volume V, Newcastle, Northumberland: Compilers of that news-paper, →OCLC, page 373, column 1:

        A bane to merit, he exerts himſelf to the deſtruction of every valuable virtue in literature, or in life: his pen is ne'er employed but in the abuſing and vituperating the innocent and meritorious; and like a voracious flie, he leaves and diſregards every accompliſhment, to fix upon the only ſore.

      • 1797 April 16, J S Eustace, “General Eustace to Mr. J. W. Ebervelt, of the West-India Colonial Committee, at the Hague”, in Letters on the Emancipation & Preservation of the United Provinces, to John De Witt, Esquire; with Lessons of Humanity, Addressed to Nicholas Van Staphorst: Written from Basil, in the Year 1794, Rotterdam: [s.n.], →OCLC, page 96:

        […] I learn that I have enemies, who, not content to hate, are sedulous to vituperate me.

      • 1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, chapter III, in Ivanhoe; a Romance. , volume III, Edinburgh: Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. , →OCLC, page 86:

        The yeomen separated the incensed priests, who continued to raise their voices, vituperating each other in bad Latin, which the Prior delivered the more fluently, and the Hermit with the greater vehemence.

      • 1909 May 14, [Hernando] Money, “Senate Resolution 44. Resolved, That the President be Requested to Transmit to the Senate All Information Collected by the Department of Commerce and Labor Affecting the Prices of Tobacco and the Operations of Corporations and Others Dealing in the Same.”, in Congressional Record: Containing the Proceedings and Debates of the Sixty-first Congress, First Session, also Special Session of the Senate (United States Senate), volume XLIV, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 2045, column 1:

        [T]he Senator from Rhode Island, in charge of the bill, had been denounced and vituperated, and had shown remarkable patience in enduring these repeated insults; […]

2. (intransitive) To use abusive or harsh words.

   Synonym: rail

   • 1870 July, Edward [Augustus] Freeman, “The Alleged Permanence of Roman Civilization in England”, in David Masson, editor, Macmillan’s Magazine, volume XXII, number 129, London: Macmillan and Co. , →OCLC, page 225, column 2:

     Now the Brito-Celtic Church as Mr. [Henry Charles] Coote calls it, the Church which Augustine vituperated, is a fact, but I should certainly like to have some proof of the existence of the other, the "Early English Church" which Augustine ignored. And I should further like to know why he vituperated in the one case and ignored in the other.

   • 1876, [Margaret] Oliphant, “A Peaceful Citizen”, in The Makers of Florence: Dante, Giotto, Savonarola; and Their City, London: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, footnote 1, pages 168–169:

     Agnolo [Pandolfini] has logic on his side in the very extreme to which he goes; but, like most of his successors in this dangerous line of remark, he loses his temper and begins to vituperate, though his rage is not against the weaker being whom he frankly despises [i.e., woman], but against the men who do not despise her.

   • 1894 September 22, “Current Comment. ”, in Lorillard Spencer, editor, The Illustrated American, volume XVI, number 240, New York, N.Y.: Lorillard Spencer, →OCLC, page 364, column 2:

     Governor "Ben" Tillman of South Carolina vituperated back with great fluency and the scene ended by a mutual promise to finish the discussion with more lethal weapons.

Derived terms

• vituperated (adjective)

Related terms

Translations

Adjective

vituperate (comparative more vituperate, superlative most vituperate) (formal)

1. Of, characterized by, or relating to abusive or harsh criticism.
   • 1998, Eva Kolinsky, “Non-German Minorities, Women and Civil Society”, in Eva Kolinsky, Wilfried van der Will, editors, The Cambridge Companion to Modern German Culture, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, published 2004, →ISBN, page 124:

     The glorification of women as mothers informed the propaganda of the Nazi years but social reality told a different story. In 1933, a vituperate campaign against 'double earners' forced married women, whose husbands were employed, out of the labour market.

   • 2019, Keith Doubt, Adnan Tufekčić, “Introduction”, in Ethnic and National Identity in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Kinship and Solidarity in a Polyethnic Society, Lanham, Md., Boulder, Colo.: Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, page 4:

     Faced with a vituperate Serbian nationalism and the despotic actions of Slobodan Milošević, who took power in the late 1980s, Slovenia and Croatia seceded from federal Yugoslavia in June 1991 […].

   • 2019, Michael Moss, “The Field of Auchtertool – A Moral Waterloo?”, in The Duel between Sir Alexander Boswell and James Stuart: Scottish Squibs and Pistols at Dawn, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, →ISBN, page 150:

     At the same time, a broadsheet entitled Memoirs of the Political Life of Robert Alexander and others was published anonymously but was evidently written by Borthwick because he sent a copy to Henry Cockburn. It was a vituperate attack on Alexander, accusing him of being a ne'er-do-well fraudster.

2. (rare) Which has been abusively or harshly criticized; also, deserving harsh criticism.
   • 1832 January, “Art. I.—Introductory Lectures on Political Economy, being Part of a Course Delivered in Easter Term, 1831. By Richard Whatley, —London. Fellowes. 1831. 8vo. pp. 238. ”, in The Westminster Review, volume XVI, number XXXI, London: [Thomas Curson Hansard] for the proprietors, and published by Robert Heward, , →OCLC, pages 6–7:

     These, and many more that might be adduced, are instances of the obscure though not absolutely impervious medium through which the present age views ancient history; and at the head of these illusions, is the great illusion of all, on wealth and poverty. Wealth was to be discreditable, unmanly, vituperate, because it was found greatly to indispose men to be active thieves. […] This is the sorry explanation, of the ancient theory of heroic poverty.

Translations

References

Further reading

• “vituperate”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “vituperate”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “vituperate”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Anagrams

• reputative

Italian

Etymology 1

Verb

vituperate

1. inflection of vituperare:
   1. second-person plural present indicative
   2. second-person plural imperative

Etymology 2

Participle

vituperate f pl

1. feminine plural of vituperato

Anagrams

• reputatevi

Latin

Verb

vituperāte

1. second-person plural present active imperative of vituperō

References

• vituperate in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)

Spanish

Verb

vituperate

1. second-person singular voseo imperative of vituperar combined with te