Traduce:
to speak maliciously and falsely of; slander; defame:
to traduce someone’s character. [Dictionary.com]
I may have seen traduce once, or even twice, before, but I fear I was ignorant of its meaning until moments ago. Noted in “THE CYBER SLEUTH,” Geraldine Brooks, WaPo:
The next time a politician or a pundit traduces the IRS, or JD Vance suggests firing half the civil service and putting in “our people,” consider whether a system that filled out its ranks with a new batch of political loyalists every four years would have the expertise of these dedicated, lifelong civil servants.
