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bad-mouth

 - 4 dictionary results

bad-mouth

[bad-mouth or, sometimes, -mouth]
–verb (used with object), -mouthed, -mouth⋅ing.
Slang. to speak critically and often disloyally of; disparage: Why do you bad-mouth your family so much?
Also, badmouth.


Origin:
1935–40; orig. a curse, spell (the sense recorded in Gullah); cf. Vai (Mande language of Liberia and Sierra Leone) dà nyà mà curse, lit., bad mouth


bad-mouther, noun
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To bad-mouth
bad·mouth or bad-mouth   (bād'mouth', -mouth')   
tr.v.   bad·mouthed or bad-mouthed, bad·mouth·ing or bad-mouth·ing, bad·mouths or bad-mouths Informal
To criticize or disparage, often spitefully or unfairly: "those cross-Atlantic aficionados who persistently idolize the British theater and bad-mouth Broadway" (Benedict Nightingale).
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Slang Dictionary
bad-mouth

  1. tv.
    to speak ill of someone or something. (See also dirty mouth; poor-mouth.) : I wish you would stop bad-mouthing my car.
  2. n.
    someone who speaks ill of someone or something. : Harry is such a bad-mouth!
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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Word Origin & History

bad-mouth  (v.)
"abuse someone verbally," 1941, probably ultimately from noun phrase bad mouth (1835), in black Eng., "a curse, spell," translating an idiom found in African and West Indian languages.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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