traduce
verb

- to strongly criticize someone, especially in a way that harms their reputation.

- to speak badly of or tell lies about someone so as to damage their reputation; to slander or defame.

Cambridge Dictionary, Merriam-Webster

—
WORD ORIGIN

Traduce derives from Latin: trans- = “across, over, beyond”, ducere = "to lead”, traducere = "to lead across, transfer, exhibit as a spectacle, disgrace”.

The progression from "lead across" to "slander" happened through the concept of "leading someone across into public shame" or "parading someone's faults before others”. In Roman times, criminals or disgraced persons might be literally led across the forum or public spaces to be exhibited and humiliated.

Traduce first appeared in English with the meaning "to defame, slander, malign" between 1530 and 1540.

What makes traduce particularly interesting is that it's a false friend for the Romance languages:

In English: traduce = slander, defame (negative). In Romance languages: Spanish: traducir = to translate, French: traduire = to translate, Italian: tradurre = to translate, Portuguese: traduzir = to translate. All these Romance words come from the same Latin traducere, but they preserved the literal "lead across" meaning - leading ideas across from one language to another!

So, in Romance languages "leading words across languages" = translate. In English "leading someone across into shame" = slander

Ducere ("to lead") has produced an enormous family in English, including:
- deduce (de- "down from" + ducere) = lead down from, infer
- induce (in- "into" + ducere) = lead into, persuade
- reduce (re- "back" + ducere) = lead back, diminish
- seduce (se- "aside" + ducere) = lead aside, tempt
- produce (pro- "forward" + ducere) = lead forward, create
- introduce (intro- "within" + ducere) = lead within
- conduct (con- "together" + ducere) = lead together
- abduct (ab- "away" + ducere) = lead away, kidnap
- educate (e- "out" + ducere) = lead out, draw forth knowledge
- duke (originally "military leader")
- duct (something that "leads" fluids/air)
- aqueduct (aqua + ducere = "leads water")

Traduce is quite formal/literary in modern English. It is common in legal, academic, or journalistic writing, and often preferred to the word "slander" when the emphasis is on malicious misrepresentation rather than legal liability.

The German word Rufmord (literally "reputation murder") captures this concept perfectly - it's more visceral than English "character assassination" or "defamation."

—

FAMOUS TRADUCEMENTS

Richard III
- Long portrayed by Shakespeare and Tudor historians as a hunchbacked, child-killing monster. The Tudor dynasty needed to justify their seizure of the throne. By "traducing" the previous king's character, they made their own rule look like a moral necessity. Modern archaeology and the discovery of his remains in a car park in 2012 showed his spinal condition was exaggerated and his legal reforms were actually quite progressive for the time.

Robert Oppenheimer
- During the McCarthy era, the "Father of the Atomic Bomb" was stripped of his security clearance and accused of being a Soviet sympathizer. The Atomic Energy Commission used an "Appeal to Authority" (legal hearings) to destroy his reputation because he opposed the development of the Hydrogen bomb.
In late 2022, the U.S. government officially vacated the 1954 decision, admitting that the process was flawed and that he had been unfairly traduced.

Monica Lewinsky
- For decades, she was the punchline of late-night jokes and described as a "stalker" or "predator." Powerful political figures used her as a lightning rod to distract from their own internal misconduct. In recent years, public opinion has shifted dramatically. She is now recognized as a victim of a massive power imbalance and a pioneer in the fight against online harassment and character assassination.


It’s rather sad to learn about so many people who have been TRADUCED through the ages!

Helga & Paul Smith

—
SYNONYMS

asperse, assassinate someone's character, backbite, bad-mouth, besmirch, blacken (someone's name), calumniate, cast aspersions on, damage someone's reputation, defame, denigrate, disparage, do a hatchet job on, drag someone's name through the mire (the mud), give a someone a bad name, impugn, libel, malign, mudsling, poison people’s minds against, poison someone's reputation, poison the well, revile, run a smear campaign against, run down, slander, sling mud at, slur, speak ill of, stab in the back, sully, take a swipe at, tarnish, tar with the same brush, tell tales about, throw shade, throw under the bus, TRADUCE (someone’s reputation), trash the reputation of, vilify

—
SMUGGLE OWAD into an English conversation today, say something like:

“Over 50 English synonyms for TRADUCE are an indication of how prevalent bad-mouthing is.”

—
Please Support OWAD

On evenings and weekends, I research and write your daily OWAD newsletter together with Helga (my lovely wife and business partner) and our eagle-eyed daughter Jennifer. It remains FREE, AD-FREE, and ALIVE thanks to voluntary donations from appreciative readers.

If you aren’t already, please consider supporting us — even a small donation, equivalent to just 1-cup-of-coffee a month, would help us in covering expenses for mailing, site-hosting, maintenance, and service.

Just head over to DonorBox:
https://donorbox.org/owad-q4-2023-5

or

Bank transfer:
Paul Smith
IBAN: DE75 7316 0000 0002 5477 40

Important: please state as ’Verwendungszweck’: “OWAD donation” and the email address used to subscribe to OWAD.

Thanks so much,

Paul
(OWAD Founder)