mudslinging

From mud +‎ slinging.

mudslinging (usually uncountable, plural mudslingings)

1. Casting aspersions with intent to discredit.

   The campaign degenerated into mutual mudslinging, each candidate trying to tarnish the other's reputation and looking bad in the process.

   The mudslinging didn't help expand the media coverage of the issues; all that was reported was the mudslingings.

   • 1906, Theodore Roosevelt, The Man with the Muck Rake:

     Some persons are sincerely incapable of understanding that to denounce mud slinging does not mean the endorsement of whitewashing; and both the interested individuals who need whitewashing and those others who practice mud slinging like to encourage such confusion of ideas.

   • 2026 January 22, Cade Metz, Kalley Huang, Mike Isaac, “The A.I. Start-Up Soap Opera Riveting Silicon Valley”, in The New York Times‎^[1], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC:

     The defections have set off furious mudslinging, as each side has cranked up its spin machine to portray its version of the story.

     (Can we archive this URL?)

• mudsling

• mud fight
• throw enough mud at the wall, some of it will stick