libel#

libel n Libel, skit, squib, lampoon, pasquinade mean a public and often satirical presentation of faults or weaknesses, especially those of an individual.

Libel (compare libel vb under MALIGN) is the legal term for statement or representation (as a cartoon) published or circulated without just cause or excuse, which tends to expose a person to public contempt, hatred, or ridicule

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cheap senseless libels were scattered about the city— Clarendon

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Skit applies to an amusing satire typically in the form of a dramatic sketch or story that may be more humorous or ironical than satirical and is usually of no very great weight or.seriousness; the term seldom connotes malice, bitterness, or abusiveness, but it often suggests the infliction of a sting

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he did not deserve your skit about his "Finsbury Circus gentility"— FitzGerald

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the first of the one-act plays was a skit more or less obviously dealing with the prime minister's attempt to forestall war

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Squib applies to a short and clever often malicious piece of satirical writing that makes its point with a sharp thrust and evokes laughter or amusement

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no one was more faithful to his early friends . . . particularly if they could write a squib— Disraeli

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Lampoon suggests more virulence and abusiveness and a coarser humor than skit or squib

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a lust to misapply, make satire a lampoon, and fiction, lie— Pope

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on his master at Twyford he had already exercised his poetry in a lampoon— Johnson

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Pasquinade is preferred to lampoon when such circum-stances as anonymity, public posting, political character, or extreme scurrility are implied

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the white walls of the barracks were covered with . . . pasquinades leveled at Cortez— Prescott

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Analogous words: scurrility, invective, vituperation, *abuse: burlesque, travesty (see CARICATURE n)

libel vb defame, slander, *malign, traduce, asperse, vilify, calumniate

Analogous words: revile, vituperate (see SCOLD): *decry, disparage, derogate, detract: caricature, travesty, burlesque (see under CARICATURE n)