Meaning of throw dirt | Babel Free

Definitions

1. To fling dust or similar.
2. To make derogatory or malicious allegations, particularly about people in public life.
   figuratively

Examples

“1759, John Wesley, letter to John Downes, Rector of St. Michael's, Wood Street, read⟳ at Wesley Center Online at https://web.archive.org/web/20060903061313/http://wesley.nnu.edu/john_wesley/letters/1766.htm on 14 Oct 06. I hope⟳...that you are ignorant of the whole affair, and are so bold only because you are blind...And blind enough; so that you blunder on through thick and thin, bespattering all that come⟳ in your way, according to the old, laudable maxim, 'Throw⟳ dirt enough, and some will stick⟳.'”

“Jortin however has pithily remarked, "It requires something of a hand even to throw⟳ dirt." The Reviewer, though no tyro, is still a bungler in that trade⟳.”

“The editors condemned the claims of one of the board⟳ members, that he was "acting in full accord with [what] the Forward⟳ was preaching," as an attempt⟳ to discredit the paper's principled opposition to the war, and characterized his plea as "an effort to throw⟳ dirt upon the entire East Side."”

CEFR level