Adjacent Words

Backbite definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

BACK'BITE, v.t. [back and bite] To censure, slander, reproach, or speak evil of the absent. Proverbs 25.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

v
1: say mean things [syn: backbite, bitch]

Merriam Webster's

verb (-bit; -bitten; -biting) Date: 12th century transitive verb to say mean or spiteful things about (as one not present) intransitive verb to backbite a person • backbiter noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

v.tr. slander; speak badly of. Derivatives: backbiter n.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Backbite Back"bite`, v. i. [2nd back, n., + bite] To wound by clandestine detraction; to censure meanly or spitefully (an absent person); to slander or speak evil of (one absent). --Spenser.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Backbite Back"bite`, v. i. To censure or revile the absent. They are arrant knaves, and will backbite. --Shak.

Easton's Bible Dictionary

In Ps. 15:3, the rendering of a word which means to run about tattling, calumniating; in Prov. 25:23, secret talebearing or slandering; in Rom. 1:30 and 2 Cor. 12:20, evil-speaking, maliciously defaming the absent.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

bak'-bit raghal; doloo: To slander the absent, like a dog biting behind the back, where one cannot see; to go about as a talebearer. "He that backbiteth [Revised Version, slandereth] not with his tongue" (Ps 15:3).

Backbiters bak'-bit-~rz (Greek katalaloi: Men who speak against. Vulgate, "detractors" (Ro 1:30)).

Backbiting bak'-bit-ing: cether: Adj. "a backbiting tongue"; literally, "a tongue of secrecy" (Pr 25:23). katalalia: substantive "a speaking against" (2Co 12:20; Wisdom 1:11); "evil speaking" (1Pe 2:1). glossa trite: "a backbiting tongue" (the King James Version of Ecclesiasticus 28:14,15); more literally translated in the Revised Version (British and American) "a third person's tongue."

T. Rees

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

v. a. Defame, traduce, malign, slander, revile, calumniate, libel, asperse, vilify, blacken, abuse, scandalize, speak ill of.