''vituperative'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''vituperative'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260904134559-00-⌔

vituperative - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

vituperative (comparative more vituperative, superlative most vituperative)

• Marked by harsh abuse; abusive, often with ranting or railing.
  • ✤ Floris gave the play a vituperative review laced with frequent personal insults.
  • ✤ […] ten times in a day calling the child of his prayers T RISTRAM!—Melancholy dissyllable of sound! which, to his ears, was unison to Nincompoop, and every name vituperative under heaven.¹
  • ✤ […] Lady Mary saw as clearly into the bodies, and I believe souls, of every servant who approached her, as if they had been cased in chrystal. And she saw so many foulnesses there, and so many aberrations, that Lady Mary’s language was almost wholly moral and vituperative.²
  • ✤ …and there were few words of vituperative abuse furnished by a lady’s vocabulary (and even some beyond it) that were not launched upon his head, as a “city tradesman,” that of the “puling baby,” his wife, his flirting sister and her wittol husband;…³
  • ✤ […] our ancestors, who were not very delicate, nor, generally speaking, much overburthened with respect for the feelings of foreigners, had a number of vituperative appellations derived from their real or supposed ill qualities, of many of which the precise import cannot now be ascertained.⁴
  • ✤ […] she […] proceeded, without a pause, to pour out a rolling flood of vituperative Latin, in which reproof, indignation, and sarcastic pleasantries followed one another with astonishing volubility.⁵
  • ✤ The injunction also became a pretext for yet another round of vituperative cant from Idaho’s reactionary congressional delegation.⁶

Etymology

Formed from vituperātus, perfect passive participle of Latin vituperō (“to blame, to censure”) +‎ -ive; by surface analysis, vituperate +‎ -ive.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /vɪˈt͡ʃuːpɹətɪv/, /vaɪˈt͡ʃuːpɹətɪv/, /vɪˈtjuːpɹətɪv/, /vaɪˈtjuːpɹətɪv/
• (US) IPA: /vəˈtuːpɚətɪv/, /vaɪˈtuːpɚətɪv/
• Audio (US):, Audio (US): 🔊 🔊

Printed 2026-09-04.

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Footnotes

1. 1759, [Laurence Sterne], chapter 19, in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, 2nd (1st London) edition, volume I, London: […] R[obert] and J[ames] Dodsley […], published 1760, →OCLC: ↩

2. 1792, Robert Bage, “chapter 81”, in Man As He Is ‎${}^{[1]}$, volume 3, London: William Lane, page 257: ↩

3. 1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXIII, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 305: ↩

4. 1875, William Gifford, footnote to Act IV, Scene 2 of Every Man in His Humour in The Works of Ben Jonson, London: Bickers & Son, Volume I, p. 106,${}^{[2]}$ ↩

5. 1928, Giles Lytton Strachey, “Chapter 9”, in Elizabeth and Essex ‎${}^{[3]}$, New York: Harcourt, Brace, page 144: ↩

6. 2008 August 16, Jeffrey St. Clair, “Last Stand in the Big Woods”, in CounterPunch ‎${}^{[4]}$: ↩

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