vituperate

Verb

vituperate (third-person singular simple present vituperates, present participle vituperating, simple past and past participle vituperated)

1. (formal, transitive) To criticize (someone or something) in an abusive or harsh manner.
   • They loue not porke, nor ſwynes fleſh, but doth vituperate and abhore it, yet for all this, they will eate Adders, which is a kind of Serpentes, as well as any other Chriſtyan man dwelling in Roome, and other highe countreys, for Adders fleſhe there, is called fyſhe of the mountayne, this...1576, Andrewe Boord [i.e., Andrew Boorde], “Treateth of Fleshe, of Wylde, and Tame Beastes. [Porke, Brawne, Bacon, Pygge.]”, in Here Followeth a Compendious Regiment, or Dietarie of Health. […]...
   • [M]y beſt Lady, you knovv, and many better men then he have told you, that I am ſo far from vvronging you vvith a falſhood, that I have maintained your honor vvith the hazzard of my life againſt any that ever durſt vituperate you; […]1652, S. S[heppard], “Amorous Letters. [A Gentleman Being Calumniated to a Lady (whom Perhaps He Affects) of Detracting from Her Honour, thus Vindicates Himself by Letter.]”, in The Secretaries...

   Synonyms:

   berate, scold, admonish, animadvert, bash, bawl out, tilt, cannonade, slash, lash

2. (formal, transitive) To attack (someone or something) with abusive language; to revile, to vilify.
   • A bane to merit, he exerts himſelf to the deſtruction of every valuable virtue in literature, or in life: his pen is ne'er employed but in the abuſing and vituperating the innocent and meritorious; and like a voracious flie, he leaves and diſregards every accompliſhment, to fix upon the only ſore.1773, J. R., “An Essay on Envy”, in I[saac] Thompson, editor, The Literary Register: Or, Weekly Miscellany. […], volume V, Newcastle, Northumberland: […] Compilers of that news-paper, →OCLC, page...
   • […] I learn that I have enemies, who, not content to hate, are sedulous to vituperate me.1797 April 16, J[ohn] S[key] Eustace, “General Eustace to Mr. J. W. Ebervelt, of the West-India Colonial Committee, at the Hague”, in Letters on the Emancipation & Preservation of the United...

   Synonyms:

   abuse, call names, vitriol, flame, name-call, revile

3. (formal, intransitive) To use abusive or harsh words.
   • Now the Brito-Celtic Church as Mr. [Henry Charles] Coote calls it, the Church which Augustine vituperated, is a fact, but I should certainly like to have some proof of the existence of the other, the "Early English Church" which Augustine ignored. And I should further like to know why he...1870 July, Edward [Augustus] Freeman, “The Alleged Permanence of Roman Civilization in England”, in David Masson, editor, Macmillan’s Magazine, volume XXII, number 129, London: Macmillan and Co. […]...
   • Agnolo [Pandolfini] has logic on his side in the very extreme to which he goes; but, like most of his successors in this dangerous line of remark, he loses his temper and begins to vituperate, though his rage is not against the weaker being whom he frankly despises [i.e., woman], but against the...1876, [Margaret] Oliphant, “A Peaceful Citizen”, in The Makers of Florence: Dante, Giotto, Savonarola; and Their City, London: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, footnote 1, pages 168–169

   Synonyms:

   call names, flame, rail, abuse, name-call, revile, vitriol

Adjective

UK/vɪˈtjuːpəɹət/US/vəˈt(j)upəɹət/

vituperate (comparative more vituperate, superlative most vituperate)

1. (formal) Of, characterized by, or relating to abusive or harsh criticism.
   • The glorification of women as mothers informed the propaganda of the Nazi years but social reality told a different story. In 1933, a vituperate campaign against 'double earners' forced married women, whose husbands were employed, out of the labour market.1998, Eva Kolinsky, “Non-German Minorities, Women and Civil Society”, in Eva Kolinsky, Wilfried van der Will, editors, The Cambridge Companion to Modern German Culture, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire...
   • Faced with a vituperate Serbian nationalism and the despotic actions of Slobodan Milošević, who took power in the late 1980s, Slovenia and Croatia seceded from federal Yugoslavia in June 1991[…].2019, Keith Doubt, Adnan Tufekčić, “Introduction”, in Ethnic and National Identity in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Kinship and Solidarity in a Polyethnic Society, Lanham, Md.; Boulder, Colo.: Lexington Books...
2. (formal, rare) Which has been abusively or harshly criticized; also, deserving harsh criticism.
   • These, and many more that might be adduced, are instances of the obscure though not absolutely impervious medium through which the present age views ancient history; and at the head of these illusions, is the great illusion of all, on wealth and poverty. Wealth was to be discreditable, unmanly...1832 January, “Art. I.—Introductory Lectures on Political Economy, being Part of a Course Delivered in Easter Term, 1831. By Richard Whatley, […]—London. Fellowes. 1831. 8vo. pp. 238. [book review]”...