DISCREDIT • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Discredit

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/dɪskrˈɛdət/ Listen

verb

Discredit v. t. (past & past part. discredited; pres. part. discrediting)

1.

To refuse credence to; not to accept as true; to disbelieve; as, the report is discredited.

2.

To deprive of credibility; to destroy confidence or trust in; to cause disbelief in the accuracy or authority of. "An occasion might be given to the... papists of discrediting our common English Bible."

3.

To deprive of credit or good repute; to bring reproach upon; to make less reputable; to disgrace. "He.... least discredits his travels who returns the same man he went."

noun

Discredit n.

1.

The act of discrediting or disbelieving, or the state of being discredited or disbelieved; as, later accounts have brought the story into discredit.

2.

Hence, some degree of dishonor or disesteem; ill repute; reproach; applied to persons or things. "It is the duty of every Christian to be concerned for the reputation or discredit his life may bring on his profession."

Synonyms: Disesteem; disrepute; dishonor; disgrace; ignominy; scandal; disbelief; distrust.

See images of 'Discredit'

Etymology of 'Discredit'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Discredit" Quotes from Famous Books

... measure because of it—and in the face of his loyal response to the call to duty, the Negro unhappily became in the course of the war the victim of proscription and propaganda probably without parallel in the history of the country. No effort seems to have been spared to discredit him both as a man and as a soldier. In both France and America the apparent object of the forces working against him was the intention to prevent any feeling that the war would make any change in the condition of the race at home. In ...

— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley

... erroneous impressions there prevalent, in regard to America, than he set out to prepare a work which should expose their falsity. In it he determined to lay the precise facts before a public which was indisposed to believe anything to the credit, and disposed to believe everything to the discredit of democratic institutions. On the face of it, this was a futile undertaking, no matter how praiseworthy its motive. Nations, no more than individuals, are convinced by what other nations say of themselves; it is only by what they do. In this particular case the difficulty ...

— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury

... of honour engaged in the profession of play; but I speak of the good old days of Europe, before the cowardice of the French aristocracy (in the shameful revolution, which served them right) brought discredit upon our order. They cry fie now upon men engaged in play; but I should like to know how much more honourable their modes of livelihood are than ours. The broker of the Exchange, who bulls and bears, and buys and sells, and dabbles with lying loans, and trades upon state-secrets,—what ...

— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope

... door." And the Cavaliere, when he had made this announcement, folded his arms and bent upon Rowland his intense, inscrutable gaze. It seemed to Rowland that he detected in the polished depths of it a sort of fantastic gleam of irony or of triumph; but superficially, at least, Giacosa did nothing to discredit his character as a presumably sympathetic ...

— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... person of great authority in the establishment. He, as well the Doctor, held Mr. Peacocke in great respect, and would have been almost as unwilling as the Doctor himself to tell stories to the schoolmaster's discredit. "They are saying down at the Lamb"—the Lamb was the Bowick public-house—"that Lefroy told them all yesterday——" the Doctor hesitated before he ...

— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope

Copyright © 2025 e-Free Translation.com