badmouth

badmouth — verb

1. to tell other people unpleasant things about someone, usually in a way that make

1.verbtransitiveB2
Definition

to tell other people unpleasant things about someone, usually in a way that makes them look bad and may damage their reputation

Example

Amira badmouthed her colleague to the supervisor after the project failed.

badmouth + someone + to + someone (recipient of gossip)

The department head asked everyone to stop badmouthing one another during meetings.

stop + badmouthing (gerund after prevention verbs)

Common collocations
  • badmouth someone behind their back
  • badmouth someone to colleagues / friends / the boss
  • constantly badmouth
  • badmouth a coworker / boss / ex-partner
Synonyms
  • speak ill of

    more neutral in register; a phrase rather than a single verb

  • slander

    formal and legal; implies making false statements that can be punished by law

  • disparage

    formal register; less emotionally charged than badmouth

  • run down

    also informal; more common in British English than American English

Antonyms

Grammar Patterns

badmouth + someone

badmouth + someone + to + someone

Usage Note

Always transitive — the person being spoken about is the direct object. Say 'badmouthed her boss', NOT 'badmouthed about her boss'. Common in informal workplace gossip and social backbiting contexts. Less common in formal writing.

Common Mistakes

She badmouthed about him to the manager.
She badmouthed him to the manager.
badmouth is transitive and takes the person as a direct object without a preposition.
He badmouthed his colleague very much.
He constantly badmouthed his colleague.
badmouth is not used with 'very much' as an intensifier; use adverbs like 'constantly', 'always', or 'openly' instead.

Word family

  • badmouthing
    nounC1

Synonym discussion

Sense: verb/1

All four expressions refer to saying negative things about someone, but they differ in register and severity. Badmouth is informal and suggests behind-the-back gossip in everyday social or workplace settings. Slander is a formal legal term that implies making deliberately false statements that harm someone's reputation. Disparage is more neutral and formal, often used in professional or academic contexts to describe belittling someone's work. Speak ill of is a neutral phrase, slightly old-fashioned, that fits both casual and semi-formal situations. For example, you might badmouth a coworker to a friend over lunch, slander a rival in a published article, disparage a proposal in a meeting, or simply say 'I don't want to speak ill of the dead.'

badmouth ↗slanderdisparagespeak ill of

Common collocations

Nouns

Adverbs

Phrases

  • behind someone's back

Prepositions

Etymology

Old EnglishEnglish

Formed by combining 'bad' (from Old English 'bæddel', meaning evil or inferior) and 'mouth' (from Old English 'mūþ', meaning opening for speaking). The compound emerged in American English slang around the 1930s–1940s as a vivid way to describe speaking negatively about someone — literally 'using your mouth to say bad things'. The verb form became common in informal conversation by the mid-20th century.