vilify
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\n \n Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 7, 2024 is:\n \n
\n \n\n vilify • \\VIL-uh-fye\\ • verb
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To vilify someone or something is to say or write very harsh and critical things about them. The word is a synonym of defame.
\n\n// They were vilified in the press for their comments.
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\u201cThe eagerness to vilify \u2018the other side\u2019\u2014usually on social media\u2014complicates the less reactionary work that defines our mission.\u201d \u2014 Jerry Brewer, The Washington Post, 11 June 2024
\n \n \n\n Did you know?
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It seems reasonable to assume that the words vilify and villain come from the same source; after all, to vilify someone is\u2014in some ways\u2014to make them out to be a villain. Such is not the case, however. Although the origin stories of both vilify and villain involve Latin, their roots are quite different. Vilify came to English (via Middle English and Late Latin) from the Latin adjective vilis, meaning \u201ccheap\u201d or \u201cvile.\u201d Someone who has been vilified, accordingly, has had their reputation tarnished or cheapened in such a way that they\u2019re viewed as morally reprehensible. Villain on the other hand, comes from the Medieval Latin word villanus, meaning \u201cvillager,\u201d and ultimately from the Latin noun villa, meaning \u201chouse.\u201d The Middle English descendent of villanus developed the meaning of \u201ca person of uncouth mind and manners\u201d due to the vilifying influence of the aristocracy of the time, and the connotations worsened from there until villain came to refer to (among other things), a deliberate scoundrel.
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