name-calling

plural name-callings · alternative name calling · alternative namecalling

1. countableuncountableThe use of derogatory labels in verbal attacks on a person or other entity.

   The next day things got heated in the schoolyard as the name calling began. It was three against one.

   2011, Mike Mose, One Drop Too White, page 107

   3 more examples

   So inflammatory were the words of some preachers during these trying years that a resolution to silence, by mayoral proclamation, a continuation of name-calling from the pulpit was presented to the city council by one would-be pacifier.

   1940, Bessie Louise Pierce, A History of Chicago, volume 2, page 389

   […] a former Republican lawmaker who left the Legislature earlier this year after she clashed with party leaders over a series of proposed transgender bills and closed-door meetings, she said, devolved into yelling and name-calling.

   2023 April 27, Jim Robbins, Mike Baker, Jacey Fortin, “A Transgender Lawmaker Is Exiled as Montana G.O.P. Flexes New Power”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 30 Apr 2023

   Can dark woke get the Democrats a Senate seat back in Ohio? What about Montana? Will enough name-calling put the Democrats in the mix in Missouri? It’s unlikely.

   2025 May 1, Ross Barkan, “'Dark Woke' Is Cringey”, in Intelligencer, New York, N.Y.: New York Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 01 May 2025

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of name-call