Definition of "libel" []

• A false publication, as in writing, print, signs, or pictures, that damages a person's reputation. (noun)
• The act of presenting such material to the public. (noun)
• The written claims presented by a plaintiff in an action at admiralty law or to an ecclesiastical court. (noun)
• To publish a libel about (a person). See Synonyms at malign. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "April except (1) Dr. Royce's insistence that my reply to his first libel should _not be published at all without his second libel_, and"
• "Jill and Gretta are apparently on the job and both using the term libel as if they knew what it meant."
• ""A thrush forgets in a year," which I call a libel on one of our most intelligent birds; or cry, with another singer,"