Word.ws English Dictionary

maligning

maligning is the present participle and gerund of malign.

Meaning of malign

Verb

malign (third-person singular simple present maligns, present participle maligning, simple past and past participle maligned)

  1. (transitive) To make defamatory statements about; to slander or traduce.
    • To be envied and shot at; to be maligned standing, and to be despised falling.1692–1717, Robert South, Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London
  2. (archaic, transitive) To treat with malice; to show hatred toward; to abuse; to wrong.
    • The people practice what mischiefs and villainies they will against private men, whom they malign by stealing their goods, or murdering them.1596 (date written; published 1633), Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande […], Dublin: […] Societie of Stationers, […], →OCLC; republished as A View of the State of Ireland […]...
    Synonyms:
    hate on, spite

See all 5 meanings of malign

Questions about maligning

What is maligning the present participle and gerund of?
Maligning is the present participle and gerund of malign.

Words near maligning in the dictionary

  1. malignified
  2. malignifies
  3. malignify
  4. malignifying
  5. malignin
  6. maligning
  7. malignins
  8. malignities
  9. malignity
  10. malignization
  11. malignizations

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: maligning (page history and authors); malign (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “maligning.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/maligning. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.