traduce

verb

1. (transitive)To malign a person or entity by making malicious and false or defamatory statements.

   “This heauy headed reueale eaſt and weſt / Makes vs traduſt, and taxed of other nations, / They clip vs drunkards, and with Swiniſh phraſe / Soyle our addition […]”

   “Well I'll not debate how far Scandal may be allowable—but in a man I am sure it is always contemtable.—We have Pride, envy, Rivalship, and a Thousand motives to depreciate each other—but the male-slanderer must have the cowardice of a woman before He can traduce one.”

   “I am earnestly desirous then, my dear Sir, that you should let the world into the traits of your genuine character, as civil broils may otherwise tend to disguise or traduce it.”

   ““The chief men of the Jews became his enemies and traduced him to the principal persons in the town, hoping to make him ashamed or afraid.””

   “Clayton interrupted him. “Stop!” he cried. “Stop! What manner of cur are you that you traduce the character of a good woman whom we believe dead! God! I was a fool ever to let you live—you are not fit to live even in this vile land.””

2. (archaic, transitive)To pass on (to one's children, future generations etc.); to transmit.

   “However therefore this complexion was first acquired, it is evidently maintained by generation, and by the tincture of the skin as a spermatical part traduced from father unto son […].”

3. (archaic, transitive)To pass into another form of expression; to rephrase, to translate.

   “From Davenant down to Dumas, from the Englishman who improved Macbaeth to the Frenchman who traduced into the French of Paris four acts of Hamlet, and added a new fifth act of his own, Shakespeare has been disturbed in a way he little thought of when he menacingly provided for the repose of his bones.”