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Backbiting is talk about someone who is not in the room — saying cruel or nasty things behind their back. It is about words, not teeth. You hear it when people complain about office gossip, school groups, or families who pick at each other when the person cannot hear. It sounds a little old-fashioned and a little moral: if you call something backbiting, you already think it is ugly. Though actually, it is stronger than ordinary gossip. Gossip can be idle; backbiting is meant to hurt.
背後中傷、背後說壞話
組成From backbite + -ing. Backbite is back + bite: to “bite” someone when they cannot see you — that is, when they are not present. Attested from Middle English bakbitynge.
同家族的字
- backbitethe older verb: to speak unkindly of someone who is not there
原始詞典資料3 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
backbitingnoun詞源 1
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The action of slandering a person without that person's knowledge.
- […]ending his epistle by saying, "that his uncle having doubtless lent his ear to some old woman's tales and backbiting, he did not choose to place his property in the hands of a spendthrift,[…]
- She was not given to backbiting—though, when stirred by any motive near to her own belongings, she would say an illnatured word or two.
backbitingadj詞源 2
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Slanderous or speaking badly, especially of a person without that person's knowledge.
- Backbiting talk that flattering blabs know wily how to blenge.
- Am I to have a backbiting wife?
這個拼法也被記錄為下列字的變化形：
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。