tr.v., -fied, -fy·ing, -fies.

To make vicious and defamatory statements about. See synonyms at malign.

[Middle English vilifien, from Late Latin vīlificāre, to hold cheap : Latin vīlis, cheap + Latin -ficāre, -fy.]

vilification vil'i·fi·ca'tion (-fĭ-kā'shən) n.
vilifier vil'i·fi'er n.

Sometimes you just can't win. The school lunches in England were not nutritional enough, so they changed the menus. Students who didn't like the cafeteria lunches were not finding anything they liked to eat. So some enterprising mothers decided to sell the forbidden foods to the kids. Now they're being vilified (maligned) for providing the children with the less nutritional — but more kid-friendly — food.

"Mrs. Critchlow ... and another mother — alarmed, they said, because their children were going hungry — began selling contraband hamburgers, fries and sandwiches to as many as 50 students a day, passing the food through the school gates. The mothers closed their business after they were vilified in the national news media as 'meat pie mums.' "

Link: Glorious Food? English Schoolchildren Think Not — International Herald Tribune

Posted October 18, 2006.

See our Word Overheard blog to see interesting uses of strange words.

verb

To make defamatory statements about: asperse, backbite, calumniate, defame, malign, slander, slur, tear down, traduce. Law libel. Idioms: cast aspersions on. See attack/defend, crimes, law.

v

Definition: criticize very harshly
Antonyms: compliment, praise

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Common misspelling(s) of vilify

• villify

Dansk (Danish)
v. tr. - bagvaske

Nederlands (Dutch)
verlagen in belangrijkheid/ waardering, belasteren

Français (French)
v. tr. - diffamer

Deutsch (German)
v. - verunglimpfen

Ελληνική (Greek)
v. - διασύρω, διαβάλλω, κακολογώ, (εξ)ευτελίζω

Italiano (Italian)
vilipendere

Português (Portuguese)
v. - vilipendiar

Русский (Russian)
клеветать, унижать

Español (Spanish)
v. tr. - denigrar, difamar

Svenska (Swedish)
v. - förtala, svartmåla

中文（简体） (Chinese (Simplified))
诽谤, 轻视, 贬低

中文（繁體） (Chinese (Traditional))
v. tr. - 誹謗, 輕視, 貶低

한국어 (Korean)
v. tr. - ~을 욕하다, 중상하다

日本語 (Japanese)
v. - けなす

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(فعل) ذم, شوه او لوث السمعه, قدح في‏

עברית (Hebrew)
v. tr. - ‮השמיץ, הלעיז, הכפיש שם‬

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