How to Use character assassination in a Sentence

character assassination

noun
  • None of those rumors are true. She's been the victim of character assassination.
  • This was a character assassination that, sure, raised the stakes, but at what cost?
    Christopher Rosa, Glamour, 30 May 2018
  • Daszak has come in for more than his share of character assassination.
    Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 2 May 2024
  • The attack, the smear, the character assassination against Judge Robert Bork, one of the smartest lawyers ever, one of the greatest professors ever.
    Fox News, 24 Sep. 2018
  • At the same time, politicians talked while the top brass stole, and all Ivan was left with was mindless paperwork — and now character assassination.
    Sarah A. Topol, New York Times, 20 Sep. 2024
  • And the type of character assassination that Dezenhall has been charting for years in the Washington P.R. business gave him the perfect plot to do that.
    Paul Bedard, Washington Examiner, 26 Feb. 2021
  • That’s not to say real couples don’t go through tumult, but the character assassination of Jim Halpert in the pursuit of high-stakes drama caused a beloved show to end on a sour note.
    Joanna Robinson, HWD, 20 May 2018
  • The notion that calling someone’s words or actions racist is character assassination was on full display on the House floor this week.
    Ben Zimmer, The Atlantic, 18 July 2019
  • Being falsely painted as a liar when I was never given the full story or played any part of the song is character assassination.
    Lester Fabian Brathwaite, EW.com, 23 June 2024
  • Being falsely painted as a liar when I was never given the full story or played any part of the song is character assassination.
    EW.com, 6 Aug. 2024
  • Being falsely painted as a liar when I was never given the full story or played any part of the song is character assassination.
    Grace Gavilanes, Peoplemag, 8 Dec. 2023
  • The battle against the pipeline, waged in the name of wildlife, indigenous peoples and the planet, feels to Albertans like character assassination.
    The Economist, 25 July 2019
  • The Democrats are engaged in a campaign of delay and character assassination against Judge Kavanaugh.
    Lisa Mascaro, The Seattle Times, 24 Sep. 2018
  • By all accounts, the character assassination of the real-life Richard Jewell was achingly plain and unjust.
    Katie Hasty, EW.com, 17 Dec. 2019
  • But how many of those barbs were simply attempts at character assassination isn’t clear.
    NBC News, 18 Oct. 2021
  • In most of these cases, the punishment is expulsion from the ivory tower and a large dose of character assassination that will follow the fellow throughout his life.
    Christine Flowers, Alaska Dispatch News, 14 Aug. 2017
  • Woodring didn’t elaborate on his claims about the women, which their lawyer called an unfair character assassination.
    Philly.com, 2 May 2018
  • Yeah, the character assassination attacks have reached a new level this year, but the articles are all nothing-burgers.
    Anna Cooban, CNN, 25 July 2022
  • The defense also argued the state’s case amounted to character assassination and raised the possibility there might have been two killers.
    Valerie Bauerlein, WSJ, 3 Mar. 2023
  • This character assassination was so vicious and so horrible, so nasty, Justice Thomas called it a high-tech lynching.
    Fox News, 27 Sep. 2018
  • This first episode will be part of a three-part webinar series on character assassination and the US Presidency, leading up to a discussion of the 2020 election.
    Examiner Staff, Washington Examiner, 19 Aug. 2020
  • The game write-ups often don’t rate a headline on the first sports page, and Dylan Hernández is more focused on character assassination of Anthony Rendon than the actual games.
    Los Angeles Times, 21 Apr. 2023
  • All Alayah can do is silently listen to her own character assassination.
    Ariana Romero, refinery29.com, 5 Feb. 2020
  • If your teen comes to you beforehand worried about how to approach the breakup, Solomon advises parents to do a role-play or brainstorm a script that avoids finger-pointing and character assassination.
    Washington Post, 15 Apr. 2021
  • The Democrats’ big idea now is character assassination and conformity.
    WSJ, 7 Feb. 2020
  • Bork became the target of a vicious campaign of character assassination in which Senator Ted Kennedy was a prime rabble-rouser.
    Mario Loyola, National Review, 22 Sep. 2020
  • Censorship, character assassination, and calls for literal book-burning are the Left’s tools of choice when faced with opposing views.
    Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 3 Dec. 2020
  • From here, the film progresses with your typical sci-fi/horror fare with jump scares and secondary character assassinations aplenty.
    Darren Orf, Popular Mechanics, 25 Feb. 2018
  • The Floyd family and its attorneys decry as character assassination the defense efforts to portray him as a drug user.
    Chao Xiong, Star Tribune, 11 Sep. 2020
  • As the moon clashes with Mercury, competition can lead to character assassinations!
    USA TODAY, 10 Nov. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'character assassination.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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