character assassination

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

Damaging someone's reputation by spreading false or misleading information

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Làm tổn hại danh tiếng bằng thông tin sai hoặc lừa đảo

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: killing of a person's character
Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

The politician suffered character assassination during the election campaign

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “character assassination” mean?

Damaging someone's reputation by spreading false or misleading information Literally: killing of a person's character

Is “character assassination” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.