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Meaning of poison-pen letter | Babel Free

Noun CEFR B2

Definitions

A missive which is malicious, insulting, and/or defamatory toward a person, organization, or point of view, especially one which is unsigned.

idiomatic

Equivalents

Français lettre anonyme
Polski anonim

Examples

“Miss Theresa Samuels . . . is accused by the Post Office authorities of sending scurrilous letters to young women whose engagements to marry had been publicly announced. . . . Those who received the poison pen letters were not willing to court the notoriety that would follow the prosecution of the case.”
“A retired academic was the author of a poison-pen letter campaign that brought 12 years of fear to a North Yorkshire village, a court was told yesterday. Dr James Forster . . . was alleged to have branded one villager a prostitute and sent the 13-year-old daughter of the parish clerk a copy of a pornographic magazine.”

CEFR level

B2
Upper Intermediate
This word is part of the CEFR B2 vocabulary — upper intermediate level.

See also

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