denounce
/dɪˈnaʊns
/verb [with object]
1Publicly declare to be wrong or evil: the Assembly denounced the use of violence he was widely denounced as a traitor...
- When money is denounced as the root of all evil, we should properly understand it not as banknotes but as bright, treacherous gold.
- He has publicly denounced all the wrongs that were levelled on him.
- Of course these photos are going to be denounced as fakes.
Synonyms
condemn, criticize, attack, censure, castigate, decry, revile, vilify, besmirch, discredit, damn, reject, proscribe;
find fault with, cast aspersions on, malign, pour scorn on, rail against, inveigh against, fulminate against, declaim against, give something a bad press, run something down;
North American slur
informal bad-mouth, knock, pan, slam, hammer, blast, hit out at, lay into, lace into, pull to pieces, pull apart, savage, maul
British informal slate, slag off, have a go at, give some stick to
archaic rate, slash, reprobate
rare vituperate, excoriate, arraign, objurgate, asperse, anathematize, animadvert on, denunciate
1.1Inform against: priests denounced him to the King for heresy...
- An informer who denounces someone to the government to be killed, imprisoned, or even fined is likened to an assailant, since being arrested can be a dangerous and traumatic experience.
- What if the secret services denounced someone based upon information extracted under torture?
- If he has not abused his authority and betrayed children, he is still guilty of not denouncing those who did.
Synonyms
expose, betray, inform against, inform on;
incriminate, implicate, cite, name, accuse
informal do
archaic inculpate
Derivatives
denouncement
/ noun ...- Marisol perhaps needed to distance herself from the rumors and her verbal denouncement of the practice was a good place to start.
- Masquerading his message as a typical tale of lovers spurned and yearned, he fashioned a vitriolic denouncement of his countrymen, people whom he saw as being more capable of lying or hiding than fighting.
- As government workers, they should have shunned the denouncement of the impeachment, which is a sort of intervention in politics, especially around the time of the approaching general elections.
denouncer
/ noun ...- Great meetings are being held in which warm and angry words prevail by both favourers and denouncers of the measure, and petitions, pro and con, to both houses of parliament, are lying for signature in all parts of this town.
- The records project an image of the denouncers - who, not surprisingly, tended to come from the same milieu as those on whom they informed - as drawn largely from groups at the lower end of the social scale.
- Often, when I have responded to some of this stuff, I've gotten an immediate, mortified apology - as though the denouncer didn't quite realize that he or she was engaged in something more than a symbolic exercise.
Origin
Middle English (originally in the sense 'proclaim', also 'proclaim someone to be wicked, a rebel, etc.'): from Old French denoncier, from Latin denuntiare 'give official information', based on nuntius 'messenger'.
announce from Late Middle English:
The base of announce is Latin nuntius ‘messenger’ (also the base of nuncio (early 16th century) a papal ambassador). From the same root come annunciation (Middle English) ‘act of announcing’; denounce (Middle English) with de- having a negative sense; pronounce (Late Middle English) from pro- ‘out, forth’; renounce (Late Middle English) from re- (expressing reversal); and enunciate (mid 16th century) ‘announce clearly’ from e- (a variant of ex-) ‘out’.