All words

discredit

Meaning

To cause a widely held belief or the esteem of a person or thing to be rejected or lost.

Examples by difficulty

Basic: Simple, everyday vocabulary — the easiest to read.

Her lies were so blatant, so cruel, that they began to discredit everything the politician had ever said. People started to doubt his promises, his past achievements, and even his good intentions, losing all respect for him.

The sudden leak of the unedited recording made everyone question the star chef's culinary genius. His boastful claims now felt hollow, designed only to mislead. The evidence, raw and undeniable, worked to discredit everything he had built.

The old miner swore he saw the glint of pure gold, but everyone else just shook their heads. His wild tales started to discredit him with the town, making them doubt everything he said, even when he truly found something amazing.

My neighbor's "award-winning" giant pumpkin was actually just a really large beach ball painted orange. When the truth came out, it did much to discredit his claims of gardening genius, leaving everyone to wonder if his prize-winning petunias were also fakes.

Bartholomew the badger tried to discredit the idea that he could juggle flaming pinecones, but his audience just giggled as he dropped the third one directly onto his own furry foot. Their laughter made him lose all respect for his clumsy performance.

Normal: Standard, everyday language.

The rumors spread like wildfire, designed to discredit him. Each whispered accusation chipped away at his reputation, making people question everything he'd ever said or done. Soon, his once solid standing began to crumble, his integrity lost in the tide of doubt.

The hushed whispers among the guild members started to discredit Elara's reputation. After she accidentally melted the ceremonial glow-stone during the Solstice ritual, her years of careful craftsmanship felt like a lie, and the respect she’d earned began to vanish like smoke.

The seasoned prospector's tales, once revered by the town, began to crumble. A single, irrefutable map fragment, unearthed in the abandoned mine, threatened to completely discredit his lifetime of tall tales about phantom veins of gold, leaving him exposed and ridiculed.

Brenda's outlandish tales of wrestling a badger for her car keys were starting to discredit her reputation as a reliable witness. Even her mother, usually her biggest fan, began to doubt Brenda's sanity after she claimed the badger was wearing a tiny sequined vest.

Gossip spread like glitter from Brenda's disastrous experimental glitter-beard grooming. Soon, the entire knitting circle began to discredit her claims of natural beard growth, whispering instead about a highly questionable craft glue incident. Her reputation as a follicular innovator was officially in tatters.

Advanced: Richer vocabulary that stretches an upper-level reader.

His reckless behavior, his blatant lies, began to discredit the manager in everyone's eyes. The trust they once had, the respect he'd earned, was eroding fast with each misstep, leaving only doubt and suspicion.

The chef’s reputation, built on years of meticulous technique, began to discredit with each burnt offering that left the kitchen. The once adoring critics now whispered their disappointment, the faith they held in his culinary genius eroding with every unpalatable dish.

The discovery of fabricated evidence was enough to completely discredit the renowned archeologist's lifelong work. Suddenly, those who had lauded him for years began to question everything, their admiration dissolving into doubt and suspicion as his reputation crumbled.

The new chef's infamous dish, a gelatinous green cube allegedly tasting of "essence of swamp," did much to discredit his previous Michelin stars. Patrons, fleeing the cafeteria with napkins clamped over their noses, seemed to unanimously reject any notion that his culinary prowess still held esteem.

The flamboyant gnome's insistence that his pet badger, Bartholomew, could predict the stock market, despite Bartholomew's consistent penchant for chewing through investor reports, began to greatly discredit the fellow's financial acumen. Soon, even the most optimistic acorn-traders questioned Bartholomew's prognosticative powers, much to the gnome's chagrin.

Challenging: Rare, high-register vocabulary for serious word lovers.

The fabricated allegations were intended to completely discredit the renowned scientist, hoping to erode public trust in his groundbreaking research. His detractors aimed to obliterate his hard earned reputation, making his profound contributions appear negligible and his entire body of work suspect.

The meticulous documentation of the fraudulent transactions began to discredit Professor Armitage’s vaunted academic reputation. His once unassailable intellect, lauded across continents, now seemed a hollow facade as the evidence mounted, progressively eroding the public’s esteem for his pronouncements.

The sensational exposé threatened to discredit years of painstaking research into the luminous properties of deep-sea bioluminescent organisms. Public opinion, swayed by the inflammatory allegations, began to doubt the veracity of established scientific consensus, eroding the esteem many held for the entire field.

The sensationalist tabloids, in their relentless pursuit of scandal, attempted to discredit the celebrated culinary critic's refined palate, alleging he once mistook truffle oil for motor lubricant. Their scurrilous accusations, however, only served to embolden his acolytes, who steadfastly championed his impeccably discerning gustatory pronouncements.

The esteemed mycologist, Professor Pricklepants, found his lifelong reputation for infallible fungal identification began to unravel when his latest monograph on the hallucinogenic properties of *Fungus obscurus* was unequivocally refuted. A single, errant photo of a puffball, misidentified as the elusive *obscurus*, was enough to discredit his entire oeuvre in the eyes of the academic community, leaving him to ponder the perfidy of pixels.

Difficulty

Normal — Everyday words worth reinforcing.

Appears in

Play word games with discredit Take the 2 minute vocabulary size test