detraction

1. 1.

   a petty disparagement

   Synonymspetty criticism

   Broaderdisparagement
2. 2.

   the act of discrediting or detracting from someone's reputation (especially by slander)

   “let it be no detraction from his merits to say he is plainspoken”

   Broaderdisparagement

Other forms of detraction

plural

detractions·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about detraction

What does detraction mean?

detraction means "a petty disparagement". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in detraction?

detraction has 4 syllables: de-trac-ti-on. The stress falls on "ti".

What is another word for detraction?

Close synonyms include petty criticism. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is detraction a common word?

detraction is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.