backbite

Backbite, v. i.

Etymology: [2nd back, n., + bite]

To wound by clandestine detraction; to censure meanly or spitefully (as absent person); to slander or speak evil of (one absent). Spenser.

1 other Webster entry under this spelling

Backbite, v. i.

To censure or revile the absent. They are arrant knaves, and will backbite. Shak.

Shades of meaning

Fernald has no entry of its own for backbite; he lists it under slander.

Where he writes about it:

To backbite is to speak something secretly to one's injury; to calumniate is to invent as well as utter the injurious charge. — from slander