calumny

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English calumnie, also calumpnie,^[2] borrowed from Middle French calomnie and directly borrowed from Latin calumnia (“trickery, subterfuge, false accusation”),^[3][4][2][5] although Collins, Dictionary.com, the Oxford Dictionary of English and the SOED give only the Latin,^[6][7][8][9] and Etymonline and the American Heritage Dictionary only the French.^[10][11] The Latin noun is from calvor (“to deceive, trick”).^{[11][10][3][12]} Klein and de Vaan explain it as a noun built on an old participle, *calvomnos^[13] or *kalwomno- (“deceiving, accusing”).^[12] The verb may be cognate with Ancient Greek κηλέω (kēléō, “to cast a spell, beguile”), Gothic 𐌷𐍉𐌻𐍉𐌽 (hōlōn, “to slander, accuse falsely”), Old Norse hól (“praise, flattery”), Old English hōl (“slander”), hōlian (“to betray”) and Old High German huolen (“to deceive”),^{[3][10][13][5][12]} which Barnhart refers to Proto-Indo-European *kēl-.^[3] De Vaan reports the alternative derivation of the Latin verb from the root of call, which he finds attractive for its meaning.^[12][10] The word is a doublet of challenge, which came through Old French.^[3][10][14] Ayto suggests that the Latin verb may also be related to cavilla (“raillery”), the source of cavil.^[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

False accusation, slander: 1447, in Bokenham's lives of saints, Þou art to blame, Wyth fals calumnye me to defame.^[2][3] The OED dates the same work before 1460.^[4]

Semantic evolution

English took the word with the accusing sense it had in Latin.^[4][2] Its doublet challenge, by contrast, had turned by the early 14th century to the sense of inviting someone to a contest.^[14] Middle English also had a legal use, a false challenge or an objection raised in bad faith, recorded before 1475.^[2] The first record of a single false charge or slanderous report, as a countable noun, is in Chapman's translation of the Iliad (1616).^[4] Johnson (1755) gave the meanings slander, false charge and groundless accusation, quoting Hamlet: "Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, Thou shalt not escape calumny".^[15] A verb calumny was borrowed from French calomnier according to the OED, which first records it in 1895.^[4] The SOED finds senses of it in the mid-16th century and a modern one from the early 19th, formed from the noun.^[9] Black's Law Dictionary labels the noun archaic.^[16]

Timeline

• 1447 – calumnye, false accusation, slander.^[2][3]
• before 1475 – in law, a false challenge.^[2]
• 1490 – calumnious, adjective.^[3]
• 1554 – calumniate, verb.^[3]
• 1616 – a false charge or slanderous report.^[4]
• 1895 – verb, to calumniate; the SOED has the verb earlier, in the mid-16th and early 19th centuries.^[4][9]

Meanings

Noun

1. The making of false and malicious statements in order to damage someone's reputation; slander: The senator denounced the pamphlet as pure calumny.^[6][5][4]
2. A false charge or misrepresentation of this kind.^[6][5][4]

Verb

1. To calumniate; to slander.^[4][9]

Word family

• calumnious
• calumniously
• calumniate

Related words

• challenge
• cavil

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
11. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
12. ^ a b c d de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
14. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ Garner, Bryan A., ed. (2004), Black's Law Dictionary, 8th ed., St. Paul, Minn.: Thomson West