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. Noah Webster's 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. Int. Standard Bible Encyclopedia BACKBITE bak'-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