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backbite

verb, noun

backbite is a verb meaning “To make spiteful slanderous or defamatory statements about someone” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled B-A-C-K-B-I-T-E and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 46 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does backbite mean?

verb

  1. 1

    To make spiteful slanderous or defamatory statements about someone.

  2. 2

    informalTo attack from behind or when out of earshot with spiteful or defamatory remarks.

  3. 3

    To speak badly of an absent individual.

noun

  1. 1

    One who engages in backbiting; a backbiter.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce backbite?

    Backbite has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

    Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

    Forms of backbite

    • backbites present, singular, he/she/it, plural
    • backbiting participle, present
    • backbit past
    • backbitten participle, past
    • back-bite

    Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

    How common is backbite?

    Backbite appears about once in every 46 million words in written English, the 209,386th most frequent word form in the list.

    Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

    Backbite in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

    In the sense to make defamatory statements about another:

    LanguageWords
    Frenchcalomnier, salir, diffamer
    Germanverleumden, afterreden, anschwärzen
    Portuguesefazer a caveira
    Spanishcalumniar

    Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

    Where does backbite come from?

    From Middle English bakbiten, bacbiten, equivalent to back- + bite. Cognate with Icelandic bakbíta (“to backbite, vilify”).

    Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).