Backbite

In Ps. 15:3, the rendering of a word which means to run about tattling, calumniating; in Prov. 25:23, secret talebearing or slandering; in Rom. 1:30 and 2 Cor. 12:20, evil-speaking, maliciously defaming the absent.

Part of speech: verb (v.)

To wound by clandestine detraction; to censure meanly or spitefully (as absent person); to slander or speak evil of (one absent). Spenser.

Part of speech: verb (v.)

To censure or revile the absent. They are arrant knaves, and will backbite. Shak.