discredit
/dɪsˈkɹɛd.ɪt/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.36 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A person or thing that causes harm to a reputation, as of a person, family, or institution.
Countable
Example Sentences
- "The candidate tried to discredit his opponent."
- "The evidence would tend to discredit such a theory."
- "Many of our correspondents participated in the discussion, and the upshot was that the alleged record was discredited."
- "Mr. Burton disbelieves it, and has brought sufficient reasons for his discredit of so improbable a story."
- "It would have been too serious a task to verify his numerous citations in our very careful reading for the present notice; but we are bound to say that, observing his discredit of some of the passages which he quotes from a contemporary American writer, and struck ourselves with the apparent inexactness of the statements in teste extracts (pp. 579, 616, 647), we were led to compare his citations, and, to our surprise, we find them incorrect and even garbled, and in one place where he had queried (thus (?)) the fact, we were surprised to find the doubt pertained to one of his own interpolations in the extracts."
- "Madan encouraged many believers in the supremacy of justice to struggle for human rights within the established systems in order to purify the image of the national institutions against any discredits by biased and unjust people."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dwóh₁ ▲ Proto-Indo-European *trísinflu. Proto-Indo-European *d(w)is- Proto-Italic *dis- Latin dis- Old French des-bor. ▲ Latin dis-bor. Middle English dis- English dis- English credit English discredit From dis- + credit.
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /dɪsˈkɹɛd.ɪt/
- British English: /dɪsˈkɹɛd.ɪt/