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Calumnious   Listen
adjective
Calumnious  adj.  Containing or implying calumny; false, malicious, and injurious to reputation; slanderous; as, calumnious reports. "Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes."
Synonyms: . Slanderous; defamatory; scurrilous; opprobrious; derogatory; libelous; abusive.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Calumnious" Quotes from Famous Books



... powerlessness of retention with which he promulgated his every thought and feeling,—more especially if at all connected with the subject of self,—without allowing even a pause for the almost instinctive consideration whether by such disclosures he might not be conveying a calumnious impression of himself, a stronger instance could hardly be given than is to be found in a conversation held by him with Mr. Trelawney, as reported by this latter gentleman, when they were on their way together to Greece. After some remarks on the state of his own health[1], mental and bodily, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... drawn a little apart from them. She had no heart to come to Dr. Slavens' defense, although she knew that the charge was calumnious. But it furnished her a sudden and new train of thought. What interest had the chief of police in circulating such a report? Was the motive for Dr. Slavens' disappearance behind that insidious attempt to discredit him, and fasten a character upon him wholly foreign ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... pride of high rank; which did not easily brook the domination of strangers, in a land which he considered himself and his compeers entitled by their birth to rule. At this juncture, however, particularly when in the company of Noircarmes, Berlaymont, and Viglius, he expressed, notwithstanding their calumnious misstatements, the deepest detestation of the heretics. He was a fervent Catholic, and he regarded the image-breaking as an unpardon able crime. "We must take up arms," said he, "sooner or later, to bring these Reformers to reason, or they will end by laying down the law for us." On the other hand, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... it is a perpetual state of sin; they deny that a good God can institute it. They declare the marital relation as great a sin as incest with one's mother, daughter, or sister." And this is by no means a calumnious charge. The language which Bernard Gui attributes to these heretics was used by them on every possible occasion. They were unable to find words strong enough to express their contempt for marriage. "Marriage," they said, "is nothing but licentiousness; marriage is merely ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard

... journals, edited by courageous and talented men, who did their best to serve their country by their writings, whatever their opinions might be, how many more had editors who were mere slander-mongers, and columns all the more eagerly read, the more calumnious they were, and the more they pandered to every envious and subversive passion. Such men were the spokesmen of that increasingly numerous class of speculators, who relinquish any useful career to seek fortune in the chances of politics. According to them, oppression and corruption had grown ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville

... What! I warrant me, you thought it would be an easy matter, and no sin, to rob and murder a parson on his way home from dinner. You said to yourself, doubtless, "We'll waylay the fat parson (you irreverent knave), as he waddles home (you disparaging ruffian), half-seas-over, (you calumnious vagabond)." And with every dyslogistic term, which he supposed had been applied to himself, he inflicted a new bruise on his rolling and roaring antagonist. "Ah, rogue!" he proceeded, "you can roar now, marauder; you were silent enough when you devoted ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock

... reprehending the Fenian conspiracy at a time when Lord Mayo's organ was patting it on the back for its 'fine Sardinian spirit'—would these ministers of religion drape their churches for three common murderers? I repel as a calumnious and slanderous accusation against the Catholic clergy of Ireland this charge, that by their mourning for those three martyred Irishmen, they expressed sympathy, directly or indirectly, with murder or life-taking. If an act be seditious, ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan

... agency of evil, relatively to man, ascribed to certain spirits in the elder Scriptures, namely: 1, of misleading (as in the case of the Israelitish king seduced into a fatal battle by a falsehood originating with a spiritual being); 2, of temptation; 3, of calumnious accusation directed against absent parties. It is not absolutely an untenable hypothesis, that these functions of malignity to man, as at first sight they appear, may be in fact reconcilable with the general functions of a being not malignant, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... "MY DEAR COUNTESS, —My efforts have been attended with no better success than yours. Well may the proverb say, 'There is none so deaf as he who will not hear,' and M. de Rumas perseveres in treating all I advanced respecting his wife as calumnious falsehoods. According to his version of the tale, madame de Rumas has no other motive in seeing Louis XV so frequently, but to implore his aid in favor of the poor in her neighborhood. I really lost all patience when I heard him attempting to veil his infamous conduct ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

... high-shouldered, stooping, and submiss. The formidable blue jowl of the man, and the dull bilious eye, set perhaps a higher value on his evident desire to please. His face was marked by capacity, temper, and a kind of bold, piratical dishonesty which it would be calumnious to call deceit. His manners, as he smiled upon the Princess, were over-fine, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... follows: "I, Cnut, a free Saxon and a leader of bowmen under King Richard in the Holy Land, do hereby pronounce and declare the statements of Sir Rudolph, miscalled the Earl of Evesham, to be false and calumnious. The earldom was, as Rudolph well knows, and as can be proved by many nobles and gentlemen of repute who were present with King Richard, granted to Sir Cuthbert, King Richard's true and faithful follower. When the time shall come, Sir Cuthbert ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty

... whither he went whilst yet, James the Second, in all the glory of a sanctified superstition, lived with his Queen, the faithful partner of his misfortunes. Lord Lovat ascribes this visit to St. Germains to his intention of dissipating the calumnious stories circulated against him by the Marquis of Athole. The flourishing statement which he gives in his memoirs of King James's reception, may, however, be treated as wholly apocryphal. James the Second, with all his errors, was too shrewd a man, too practised ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson

... completely retracted nor retreated—he dived and came up in another place. Lyon divined that he was capable at intervals of defending his position with violence, but only when it was a very bad one. Then he might easily be dangerous—then he would hit out and become calumnious. Such occasions would test his wife's equanimity—Lyon would have liked to see her there. In the smoking-room and elsewhere the company, so far as it was composed of his familiars, had an hilarious protest always at hand; but among the men who had known him long his rich tone ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James

... The splenetic capacity, the calumnious credulity, the pleasures of prevarication and of rolling falsehoods like a sweet morsel under the tongue, have made those thirty thousand Cromwell pamphlets possible. It is stated by one writer, Heath, now pleasantly known as "Carrion Heath," that ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard

... us has it been said to the accused that she then held to be true the statements of the good Sire Harduin and of the innkeeper Tortebras. By her who speaks has it been replied, that she recognised as evidence the greater part, and also as malicious, calumnious, and imbecile ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac

... his death, on the ensuing days a vast multitude of almost all ranks, whose names it would be too arduous a task to enumerate, being convicted by calumnious accusations, were despatched by the executioners, after having been first exhausted by every description of torture. Some were put to death without a moment's breathing-time or delay, while the question was still being asked whether they deserved to ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... as these tended much to agitate England," writes a great French historian. "The British Press, arrogant and calumnious, as the Press always is in a free country, railed much at Napoleon and his preparations; but railed as one who trembles at that which he would fain exhibit as the object of his laughter." It may have been so, but it is not to be seen in any serious journal of ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... sacrifice was necessary. Julia has sacrificed herself for us. With another love in her heart, she has magnanimously thrown away her freedom and given up her maiden love for the promotion of our happiness. We owe it to her to preserve her honor untarnished, that the calumnious crowd may not pry into the motives of her generous act. For Julia's sake, the world must and shall believe that she is in fact your wife, and that it was love that united you. We must, therefore, preserve appearances, and you must conduct ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... worthy celebrating, that the Kazi of the Army repaired to the Sultan, he and the whole of his officials, and he ceased not wending until he entered the presence, where he salam'd and said, "O King of the Age, is it lawful and allowed of Allah Almighty that thy Wali charge us with calumnious charge and false?" As the Chief of Police was standing hard by, the Sultan asked him, "How can the Wali have misspoken thee and thy daughter when she is still imprisoned by him and in his house?" whereto the Chief of Police added, "'Tis true! his daughter is surely with us in durance ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... departure were made, the long-expected help came. Ribault arrived from France with a fleet of seven vessels containing three hundred settlers and ample supplies. This arrival was not a source of unmixed joy to Laudonniere. His factious followers had sent home calumnious reports about him, and Ribault brought out orders to send him home to stand his trial. Ribault himself seems to have been easily persuaded of the falsity of the charges, and prest Laudonniere to keep his command; but he, broken in spirit and sick in ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various

... conspicuous infamy; not even to the Senate, which illustrious body he had on all occasions deliberately treated with contumely and hatred,—but to the private revenge of an insulted soldier. The weak thin voice of Cassius Chaereas, tribune of the praetorian cohort, had marked him out for the coarse and calumnious banter of the imperial buffoon; and he determined to avenge himself, and at the same time rid the world of a monster. He engaged several accomplices in the conspiracy, which was nearly frustrated by their want of resolution. ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... true enough, for it is probable that friend Jack freshened his nip a trifle after my departure, seeing that he was always something of a drunken knave. As for his calumnious and scandalous declaration, that I was in the least degree tipsy, it is too ridiculous to be noticed. I scorn it with my heels—I was sober—sober, cool, and steady as the north star; and he that is inclined to question this solemn asseveration, let him send ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... genial. I must guard the reader against accepting Kirstie's epithets as evidence; she was more concerned for their vigour than for their accuracy. Dwaibly, for instance; nothing could be more calumnious. Frank was the very picture of good looks, good humour, and manly youth. He had bright eyes with a sparkle and a dance to them, curly hair, a charming smile, brilliant teeth, an admirable carriage of the head, the look of a gentleman, ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... in such a quarrel, from his general rule of conduct; and for a paramount purpose of comprehensive service to all mankind, we entirely agree with Mr. James, that Charlemagne had a sufficient plea, and that he has been censured only by calumnious libellers, or by the feeble- minded, for applying a Roman severity of punishment to treachery continually repeated. The question is one purely of policy; and it may be, as Mr. James is disposed to think, that in point of judgment the emperor erred; ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey

... is a curious specimen of one who evidently wished to burn his brother with his book. In this curious proclamation, which has been preserved as a literary curiosity, Bayle's "Critique" is declared to be defamatory and calumnious, abounding with seditious forgeries, pernicious to all good subjects, and therefore is condemned to be torn to pieces, and burnt at the Place de Greve. All printers and booksellers are forbidden to print, or to sell, or disperse the said abominable book, under pain ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... Logic. 3d Chap. of the Platonic Logic. 4th Chap, of Aristotle, containing a fair account of the "*[Greek: Orhganon]—of which Dr. Reid, in 'Kaimes' Sketches of Man', has given a most false, and not only erroneous, but calumnious statement—in as far as the account had not been anticipated in the second part of my work, namely, the concise and simple, yet full, etc. etc. 5th Chap. A philosophical examination of the truth and of the value of the Aristotelian System of Logic, including all the after-additions ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... for publishing this letter. I do it for her sake, not for mine. Even now I believe that, were I left alone with her for an hour, with none of her relatives nor a policeman near, I could persuade her to retract her calumnious statement about the poker. I conclude by saying that it is my belief that her relatives, who are all of them powerful mesmerists, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, May 9, 1891 • Various

... the son of an honest man, and do not come from Cagli." (These and similar outbursts of indignant passion scattered up and down the epistle, show to what extent the sculptor's irritable nature had been exasperated by calumnious reports. As he openly declares, he is being driven mad by pin-pricks. Then follows the detailed history of his dealings with Julius, which, as I have already made copious use of it, may here be given in ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... to Octave Mirbeau's calumnious story, denied by both the Countess Mniszech and Gigoux's nephew and heir, the Princess Radziwill states that when Balzac died, her aunt did not know Gigoux and had never seen him. He was introduced to her only in 1860 by her daughter, who asked him to paint her ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd

... genius suggested expressions, that if taken seriously and in their literal sense, might some day furnish the weapons of accusation to his enemies. For, while acting thus toward Florence, he introduced the episode into "Childe Harold" in a way that looks calumnious against himself:—— ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... Christian doctrine;(171) thus skilfully prejudicing the mind of his readers against the persons before attacking the doctrines. He alludes to the quarrelsomeness shown in the various sects of Christians,(172) and repeats the calumnious suspicion of disloyalty,(173) want of patriotism,(174) and political uselessness;(175) and hence defends the public persecution of them.(176) Filled with the esoteric pride of ancient philosophy, he reproaches the Christians with their carefulness ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... criminal cases an oath has to be taken against calumnious allegations (Extra, De juramento calumniae, cap. Inhaerentes): and this would not be the case if it were lawful to defend oneself with calumnies. Therefore it is not lawful for the accused to defend ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... zealous and honoured ministers of the Church, had made an enemy of Balfour of Burley, who has already been referred to in connection with outrages on citizens of St. Andrews. In revenge, Balfour raised calumnious charges against Black of disloyal utterances in the pulpit, and got them conveyed, through acquaintances among the courtiers, to the King's ears; Melville, as his friend, and as having been the means of bringing him to the city, ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison

... which the Chancellor replied that 'he knew nothing of any loose reports, but that if there were any, in whatever quarter they might have originated, which went to affect the conduct of Lady Lyndhurst in the matter in question, they were most false, foul, and calumnious.' So ended the correspondence; all these latter expressions were intended to apply to the Duke himself, who is the person who spread the loose reports and told the lies about her. When she first denied him, she told Lord Bathurst of it, who assured ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... 13), the sign of the prophet Jonas (Matt. xvi. 1, 4), and the triumphal entry (the ass with the colt), show a special affinity to St. Matthew. And, lastly, in concert with the same Evangelist, Justin has the calumnious report of the Jews (Matt. xxviii. 12 15) and the ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday

... distributed; yet because a small sum was reserved to help some of the more helpless at another time, and the same was put out to interest in the town's books, there were not wanting evil-minded persons who went about whispering calumnious innuendos to my disadvantage; but I know, by this time, the nature of the world, and how impossible it is to reason with such a seven-headed and ten-horned beast as the multitude. So I said nothing; only I got the town-clerk's young man, who acted as clerk to the committee of the subscription, ...
— The Provost • John Galt

... 1842. So many of the charges against yourself and your friends which I have seen in the public journals have been, within my own knowledge, false and calumnious, that I am not apt to pay much attention to what is asserted with respect ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman

... Nutter, boldly, "since you find yourself defeated in the claims you have made against my property, you are seeking to revenge yourself, I understand, by bringing charges against me as false as they are calumnious. But I defy your malice, and can defend ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... flagging, nor taking an unfair advantage of the facts. Jack at a given moment, when arising, as it were, from the tripod, can be more radiantly just to those from whom he differs; but then the tenor of his thoughts is even calumnious; while Athelred, slower to forge excuses, is yet slower to condemn, and sits over the welter of the world, vacillating but still judicial, and still faithfully contending ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... failed in any serious enterprise. His incapacity was not patent. He had the prestige of his name, youth, good looks, and a courage carried even to temerity. The avowed slave of Madame de Montbazon, he had espoused her quarrel, and to gratify her had joined in propagating those calumnious reports, but without exhibiting the violence of Beaufort, and had remained erect, confronting ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... saying that the design of this man was to hurt his "precious opportunities of glorifying" his "glorious Lord Jesus Christ." He earnestly besought that those opportunities might not be "damnified" by Calef's book. And he finished by imploring deliverance from his calumnies. So "I put over my calumnious adversary into the hands ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham

... two disciples of the Muse is Jonson's 'gally ink' directed. Let us give a few instances of the lampoons and calumnious squibs by which Horace pretends having been insulted on the part of envious colleagues who, he maintains, look askance at him because 'he keeps more worthy gallants' company' than they can get into. In act iv. sc. ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis

... had done so upon seeing Sinclair bow himself down to the ground for a considerable time. This alleged act of cowardice on the part of Sinclair appears, however, not to have really taken place; but it was made the groundwork of a calumnious imputation. It must, however, be acknowledged, that there was nothing in the subsequent conduct of the Master of Sinclair, as far as the battle of Sherriff Muir was concerned, to raise his character as ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson

... time, and of time's galling yoke, That like a mill-stone on man's mind doth press, Which only works and business can redress: Of divine Leisure such foul lies are spoke, Wounding her fair gifts with calumnious stroke. But might I, fed with silent meditation, Assoiled live from that fiend Occupation— Improbus Labor, which my spirits hath broke— I'd drink of time's rich cup, and never surfeit: Fling in more days than went to make ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... a feature of the age. I venture to call such moralists insincere. At any excess or perversion of a natural appetite, their lyre sounds of itself with relishing denunciations; but for all displays of the truly diabolic - envy, malice, the mean lie, the mean silence, the calumnious truth, the back-biter, the petty tyrant, the peevish poisoner of family life - their standard is quite different. These are wrong, they will admit, yet somehow not so wrong; there is no zeal in their assault on them, no secret element of gusto warms up the sermon; it is for things ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson

... a sum of L5000 lent under a bond. For the defence it was alleged that the money had been entrusted for a particular purpose, namely, the maintenance of an infant. Jeffrey denied the existence of any such claim, and maintained that whatever was scandalous or calumnious in the defence was absolutely untrue. The case, which was not included in the Scottish Law Reports, was probably settled out of court. Evidently the judge held that on technical grounds an action did not lie. Burdett's enemies were not slow in turning the scandal to account. ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... and the public offices are disorganised by the sudden dismissal of well-trained public servants, who are replaced by the incompetent favourites of those in power. The lightest suspicion of what is known as clericalism, even when only a suspicion, based on anonymous and calumnious denunciation, is sufficient to condemn a functionary. If it be not trivial to give a simple example, I would quote one which will, I think, remind your Lordship of the name of an old friend. Monsieur Tresca, ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... contractors, of your social state and character as a people, have been but the echo of things which have been said here. If the New-York correspondents of some English journals have been virulent and calumnious, their virulence and their calumnies have been drawn, to a great extent, from the American circles in which they have lived. No slanders poured by English ignorance or malevolence on American society have been so foul as those which came from a renegade American writing in one of our Tory journals ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various

... July 24, 1816), to "the only important calumny"—to quote Shelley's letter of September 29, 1816—"that was even ever advanced" against Byron. "The poems to Augusta," remarks Elze (Life of Lord Byron, p. 174), "prove, further, that she too was cognizant of the calumnious accusations; for under no other supposition is it possible to understand their allusions." But the mere fact that Mrs. Leigh remained on terms of intimacy and affection with her brother, when he was under the ban of society, would expose her to slander and injurious comment, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... equality with God, 760 In imitation of that Mount whereon Messiah was declar'd in sight of Heav'n, The Mountain of the Congregation call'd; For thither he assembl'd all his Train, Pretending so commanded to consult About the great reception of thir King, Thither to come, and with calumnious Art Of counterfeted truth thus held thir ears. Thrones, Dominations, Princedomes, Vertues, Powers, If these magnific Titles yet remain 770 Not meerly titular, since by Decree Another now hath to himself ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... worshipful praetor! 'tis more of thy gentleness than of my deserving, I wusse. But since it hath pleased the court to make choice of my wisdom and gravity, come, my calumnious varlets; let's hear you talk for yourselves, now, an hour or two. What can you say? Make a ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson

... the reare of your Affection;[2] [Sidenote: keepe you in the] Out of the shot and danger of Desire. The chariest Maid is Prodigall enough, [Sidenote: The] If she vnmaske her beauty to the Moone:[3] Vertue it selfe scapes not calumnious stroakes, [Sidenote: Vertue] The Canker Galls, the Infants of the Spring [Sidenote: The canker gaules the] Too oft before the buttons[6] be disclos'd, [Sidenote: their buttons] And in the Morne and liquid dew of Youth, Contagious blastments are most imminent. Be wary then, ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald



Words linked to "Calumnious" :   denigratory, denigrative, denigrating, calumniatory, libellous, slanderous



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