badmouth

See also: bad-mouth

English

Alternative forms

• bad-mouth

Etymology

Calque of a Mande term, perhaps Vai [Term?] or Mandinka [Term?], which entered English via Gullah [Term?]. Compare Japanese 悪口(わるぐち) (waruguchi, “badmouthing”), which is a compound of 悪(わる) (waru, “bad, wicked”) and 口(くち) (kuchi, “mouth”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbæd.maʊθ/

Verb

badmouth (third-person singular simple present badmouths, present participle badmouthing, simple past and past participle badmouthed)

1. (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^[1], 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^[2], →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

• Bengali: গীবত গাওয়া (gibot gaōẇa)
• Catalan: malparlar (ca)
• Dutch: kwaadspreken (nl)
• Finnish: panetella (fi), puhua pahaa (fi)
• French: dénigrer (fr), déprécier (fr), débiner (fr)
• German: schlechtreden (de), schlechtmachen (de)
• Japanese: 悪口 (ja) (waruguchi)
• Portuguese: falar mal
• Romanian: ponegri (ro)
• Russian: черни́ть (ru) (černítʹ), поро́чить (ru) (poróčitʹ), матери́ть (ru) (materítʹ) (to swear dirtily at), обли́вать гря́зью (oblívatʹ grjázʹju)
• Swahili: sengenya
• Swedish: tala illa om