asperse

present singular third person asperses · participle present aspersing · participle past aspersed · past aspersed

1. To sprinkle or scatter (liquid or dust).

   a hand in San Marco's font / aspersed him with foul canal water

   2004, Derek Walcott, The Prodigal, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, page 102

2. To falsely or maliciously charge someone.

   If any one had taxed him with the vice, he would have indignantly repelled the accusation, and conceived himself unworthily aspersed.

   1844, Charles Dickens, chapter 32, in Martin Chuzzlewit, London: Chapman and Hall, page 394

   2 more examples

   It hath always been my way to baffle reproach with silence; though I cannot but observe the disingenuous proceedings of this gentleman, who is not content to asperse my writings, but hath wounded, through my sides, those eminent and worthy citizens, Mr. John Morphew, and Mr. Bernard Lintot.

   1710 April 28 (Gregorian calendar), Isaac Bickerstaff [pseudonym; Joseph Addison; Richard Steele], “Monday, April 18, 1710”, in The Tatler, number 160; republished in [Richard Steele], editor, The Tatler, […], London stereotype edition, volume II, London: I. Walker and Co.; […], 1822, →OCLC, page 409

   1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, Dublin: John Smith, Volume 2, Book 8, Chapter 8, pp. 126-127, This is indeed a most aggravating Circumstance, which attends unjustly depriving Men of their Reputation; for a Man who is Conscious of having an ill Character, cannot justly be angry with those who neglect and slight him; but ought rather to despise those that affect his Conversation, unless where a perfect Intimacy must have convinced them that their Friend’s Character hath been falsely and injuriously aspersed.

   Synonyms: libel, slander, traduce, assassinate, backbite, badmouth, befoul, belibel