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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

vituperate.

To criticize (someone or something) in an abusive or harsh manner.

10 characters4 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/vɪˈtjuːpəɹeɪt/Received-Pronunciation/vaɪ-/Received-Pronunciation/-ˈtʃuː-/Received-Pronunciation/vəˈt(j)upəˌɹeɪt/General-American
  1. To criticize (someone or something) in an abusive or harsh manner.

    formal · transitive
  2. To attack (someone or something) with abusive language; to revile, to vilify.

    formal · transitive
  3. To use abusive or harsh words.

    formal · intransitive
Where this word comes from

PIE word *dwóh₁ Learned borrowing from Latin vituperātus (“censured; disparaged”), perfect passive participle of vituperō (“to blame, scold, tell off; to censure; to disparage, find fault with”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from vitium (“blemish, defect, flaw, imperfection; crime, misdeed, wrongdoing; fault, error, sin; vice; disease (of plants)”) (possibly from Proto-Indo-European *(d)wi-tyo- (“apart; wrong”), from *dwóh₁ (“two”)) + parō (“to acquire, get, obtain, procure; to arrange, order; to contrive, design; to furnish, provide; to produce; to decide, resolve”) (from Proto-Indo-European *per- (“to get, procure; to produce; to bring forward; to bring forth, carry forth; to go through”)).

adj/vɪˈtjuːpəɹət/Received-Pronunciation/vaɪ-/Received-Pronunciation/-ˈtʃuː-/Received-Pronunciation/-ɹeɪt/Received-Pronunciation
  1. Of, characterized by, or relating to abusive or harsh criticism.

    formal
  2. Which has been abusively or harshly criticized; also, deserving harsh criticism.

    formal · rare
Where this word comes from

Learned borrowing from Latin vituperātus (“censured; disparaged”), see Etymology 1 and -ate (adjective-forming suffix) for more.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.