a. Also 5 calomp-, 6 calumpniouse. [ad. L. calumniōsus, f. calumnia: see CALUMNY and -OUS. But perh. Caxton took it immediately from a 15th-c. F. calompnieux, -euse (though Littré has it only from 16th c.).] Characterized by calumny; of the nature of calumny or of a calumniator; slanderous, defamatory.
1490. Caxton, Eneydos, xxvii. 98. Dydo seeng the first openyng of the daye sore besi to chasse the tenebres calompniouse away.
1508. Fisher, 7 Penit. Ps. cxlii. Wks. (1876), 266. This calumnyous vyce of enuy.
1601. Shaks., All’s Well, I. iii. 61. A foule mouth’d and calumnious knaue.
1667. Milton, P. L., V. 770. With calumnious Art Of counterfeted truth.
1711. Steele, Spect., No. 151, ¶ 7. He has been … unmercifully calumnious at such a Time.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., IV. 225. It might be true that a calumnious fable had done much to bring about the Revolution.
1871. Morley, Voltaire (1886), 99. A calumnious journalist.
Hence Calumniously adv., Calumniousness.
1625. Bp. Mountagu, App. Cæsar., 26. Dealing … so insincerely and calumniously.
1652. Gaule, Magastrom., 350. [She] most calumniously charged the vertuous Queen with her own sorcerous act.
1633. Bp. Morton, Disch. 5 Imputations, II. 227 (R.). The Bitternesse of my Stile, was Plainnesse, not Calumniousnesse.
