How to use discredit in a sentence

32 example sentences · verb, noun

Discredit means to harm the good reputation of (a person). Example: “The candidate tried to discredit his opponent.”

Examples of discredit by meaning

verbTo harm the good reputation of (a person).

The candidate tried to discredit his opponent.

verbTo cause (an idea or piece of evidence) to seem false or unreliable.

The evidence would tend to discredit such a theory.
Many of our correspondents participated in the discussion, and the upshot was that the alleged record was discredited.1944 July and August, Charles E. Lee, “The "City of Truro"”, in Railway Magazine, page 202

nounDiscrediting or disbelieving.

Madan encouraged many believers in the supremacy of justice to struggle for human rights within the established systems in order to purify the image of the national institutions against any discredits by biased and unjust people.1987, The Nairobi Law Monthly, page 142

nounA person or thing that causes harm to a reputation, as of a person, family, or institution.

And that I was a discredit to my race.1971, Curt Flood, Richard Carter, The way it is, page 18
And for now to have a policy where those fine Americans can only serve if they lie about who they are is a discredit to the American people.2009, Don't Ask, Don't Tell Review: Hearing Before the Military Personnel Subcommittee of the Committee on Armed Services, US House of...
Inadequate, undisciplined, and nondevoted teachers are discredits to the schools they serve.2015, Daniel Iyeks, The Perils of the Young Blacks

nounThe state of being discredited or disbelieved.

Later accounts have brought the story into discredit.

More sentences with discredit

She put forth several allegations regarding her partner in hopes of discrediting his actions.From the entry allegation
As a ploy to discredit the reformist politician, the opposing party had hired a lookalike to act as his evil twin and be seen in a variety of compromising situations.From the entry evil twin
Similarly discredited is the 'edumyth' that the brain's structure is defined by infancy or by adolescence.2021 June 21, Lynne Hunt, Denise Chalmers, University Teaching in Focus: A Learning-centred Approach, Routledge, →ISBN. From the entry edumyth
The staid and uncool Democratic Establishment, by blowing a gimme election, had discredited itself.2019 March 3, Simon van Zuylen-Wood, “When Did Everyone Become a Socialist?”, in New York Magazine. From the entry gimme
Newspapers tend to discredit veganism through ridicule, or as being difficult or impossible to maintain in practice.2011 March, Matthew Cole, Karen Morgan, “Vegaphobia: derogatory discourses of veganism and the reproduction of speciesism in UK national…. From the entry vegaphobia
Wackipedia has pretty much been discredited in the USA and around the world.2006 August 1, Rose Melinis, “Wikipedia: Cyberbullying”, in soc.culture.filipino (Usenet), archived from the original on 26 Oct 2025. From the entry Wackipedia
But when the antinukes quote this study, they do not tell anybody that it's been discredited.1996, Fred D. White, Communicating technology: dynamic processes and models for writers. From the entry antinuke
The Confucian ethic has been discredited, but no new ethic has taken its place.1946 September 1, John K. Fairbank, “Our Chances in China”, in The Atlantic. From the entry culturism
For a time it looked as if even ideological protests against the ruling system had been discredited.1938, Oscar Jászi, “Feudal Agrarianism in Hungary”, in Foreign Affairs, volume 16. From the entry agrarian scissors
To discredit the Negro officers in general all sorts of reports were circulated as to their undesirableness.1928, Carter G. Woodson, chapter 37, in Negro Makers of History, Washington, D.C.: The Associated Publishers, pages 328–329. From the entry undesirableness
Instead, the approach would be to discredit the value of paradigm learning from experience, and embrace new ideas from nonrailroaders.2011, Charles F. Mori, In Between the Rails, page 118. From the entry nonrailroader
It's a good way to discredit other users by making it seem like they are sending offensive posts.2007, Michael Powell, Forbidden Knowledge: 101 Things NOT Everyone Should Know How to Do, Adams Media, →ISBN, page 252. From the entry sporgery
Nevertheless, caricatured as "diaperology" the Russian swaddling hypothesis did much to discredit the culture-and-personality approach in academic circles.1999, Susan Hegeman, Patterns for America: Modernism and the Concept of Culture, Princeton University Press, →ISBN, page 167. From the entry swaddling hypothesis
The Black New World Order may be a niche subgenre, making it easy to discredit as evidence of a larger phenomenon, its implications are far-reaching.2025 January 30, Laura-Ashley Modunkwu, “Welcome to the Black New World Order”, in Candour (blogpost), archived from the original on 24…. From the entry black new world order
Le bon sens served Voltaire well: it enabled him to discredit much clerical propaganda and a good many naive and pedantic absurdities.2013, Isaiah Berlin, edited by Henry Hardy, Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas, 2nd edition, Princeton University Press…. From the entry oxblood
Antonia, a day-care center owner in Jardim Sudoeste, said, "Honestly, not just for myself, but for many others, the politician is very discredited.2013, Simone Judith Buechler, Labor in a Globalizing City, page 68. From the entry discredited
To boost his returns, Jones borrowed heavily and bought stocks he liked “on margin”—a practice that had been discredited in the late nineteen-twenties.2011 July 18, John Cassidy, “Mastering the Machine”, in The New Yorker, →ISSN. From the entry hedge fund
As a result everything was done that men in an acute stage of "job fright" could do to discredit the new system.1912, Business: The Magazine for Office Store and Factory. From the entry job fright
Films perpetuate completely discredited historical theories about events (director Oliver Stone based his film JFK on a discredited report on the Kennedy assassination; see Section 13.6).2024, Robert C. Williams, The Historian's Toolbox. From the entry discredited
The process of "straightening Austen out" thus transpired within an institutional framework determined to discredit the authority of Janite reception by repositioning her novels within heteronormative cultural codes.2001, James L. Machor, Philip Goldstein, Reception Study: From Literary Theory to Cultural Studies, page 77. From the entry Janite
Therianthropism, as described in my chapter on the rhetoric of animality, appears only to operate successfully when used as a means of discrediting or demeaning other people.1993, Steve Baker, Picturing the Beast: Animals, Identity, and Representation, page 224. From the entry therianthropism
While AFSA demands justice, we cannot tolerate or sit quietly back and watch colleagues being targeted, secretly investigated, discredited and financially abused because they crossed wires with IG staff.1993, United States, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Governmental Affairs, The Integrity and Effectiveness of the Offices of…. From the entry cross wires
The Redskins never denied — or even addressed — Cooley’s conjecture, leading dot-connectors to wonder if team president Bruce Allen and team higher-ups weren’t behind a campaign to discredit McCloughan.2017 March 2, Jonathan Lehman, “No one believes the Redskins or their missing GM”, in New York Post, New York, N.Y.: News Corp, →ISSN…. From the entry dot-connector
She had managed to incommode and discredit that pair almost as much as any pair could be incommoded and discredited, although they were the most harmless couple in the world.1928 January, Ford Madox Ford, chapter VII, in The Last Post (Parade’s End; 4), New York, N.Y.: The Literary Guild of America, →OCLC, part…. From the entry incommode

Meaning of discredit

verb To harm the good reputation of (a person).
verb To cause (an idea or piece of evidence) to seem false or unreliable.
noun Discrediting or disbelieving.

Full definition of discredit

Questions about discredit in a sentence

How do you use discredit in a sentence?: Discredit is used as a verb and noun. For example: “The candidate tried to discredit his opponent.”
What is a short sentence with discredit?: “The candidate tried to discredit his opponent.”
What does discredit mean?: Discredit means to harm the good reputation of (a person).

Adapted from Wiktionary: discredit (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use discredit in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/discredit. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.