Slander

How to spell slander

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce slander

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does slander mean?

1. nounA false spoken statement that damages a person's reputation.
2. verbTo harm someone's reputation by making false spoken statements about them.

Slander in a sentence

• noun

  The politician sued the broadcaster for slander after the interview.

• verb

  He threatened to sue anyone who dared to slander his business in public.

• noun

  Spreading slander about a colleague can end a career and a friendship.

• verb

  It is reckless to slander a former employer during a job interview.

Where does slander come from?

Language of origin: French

Slander entered English in the 1200s from the Old French esclandre, meaning a scandal, disgrace, or cause of offence. That French form descended from the Latin scandalum, which meant a stumbling block or a snare, and which itself came from the Greek skandalon, the trigger of a trap that causes someone to fall. Notice the family resemblance: slander and scandal are essentially the same Latin word arriving by two different routes, which is why both involve damage to reputation. The Old French speakers softened and reshaped scandalum into esclandre, and as English absorbed it the awkward cluster collapsed and the spelling settled on slander, with the d that survives from scanDalum. The legal sense, spoken defamation as opposed to the written kind called libel, sharpened over the centuries, but the original idea of tripping someone into ruin still sits underneath.

How the word is built

• slander (from Old French esclandre: scandal, disgrace)
• (no affix; the root noun reshaped in English)