International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
BACKBITEbak'-bit raghal; doloo: To slander the absent, like a dog biting behind the back, where one cannot see; to go about as a talebearer. "He that backbiteth [Revised Version, slandereth] not with his tongue" (Psalm 15:3).
Backbiters bak'-bit-rz (Greek katalaloi: Men who speak against. Vulgate, "detractors" (Romans 1:30)).
Backbiting bak'-bit-ing: cether: Adj. "a backbiting tongue"; literally, "a tongue of secrecy" (Proverbs 25:23). katalalia: substantive "a speaking against" (2 Corinthians 12:20; Wisdom 1:11); "evil speaking" (1 Peter 2:1). glossa trite: "a backbiting tongue" (the King James Version of Ecclesiasticus 28:14, 15); more literally translated in the Revised Version (British and American) "a third person's tongue."
T. Rees
Easton's Bible Dictionary
In
Psalm 15:3, the rendering of a word which means to run about tattling, calumniating; in
Proverbs 25:23, secret talebearing or slandering; in
Romans 1:30 and
2 Corinthians 12:20, evil-speaking, maliciously defaming the absent.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
1. (
v. i.) To wound by clandestine detraction; to censure meanly or spitefully (an absent person); to slander or speak evil of (one absent).
2. (v. i.) To censure or revile the absent.
Strong's Hebrew
7270. ragal -- to go about on foot... spies (11), spy (9), taught to walk (1).
backbite, slander, espy out, teach
to go, view. A primitive root; to walk along; but only
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