Definition
Slander is oral defamation: the speaking of false statements about another person that injure that person's reputation. It is one of the two principal forms of defamation, the other being libel (written or published defamation). A slander claim requires that the defendant made a false statement of fact — not opinion — that was communicated to at least one third party and that caused harm to the plaintiff's reputation.
Unlike libel, slander historically required the plaintiff to prove actual, special damages as a condition of recovery, with the exception of statements falling into certain privileged categories severe enough to be actionable without proof of damages.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A false or unsupported, malicious statement (spoken, not written), especially one injurious to a person's reputation; the making of such a statement.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A false tale or report maliciously uttered, tending to injure the reputation of another; the malicious utterance of defamatory reports.
The common and legal meanings are close but not identical on two points. First, common usage treats slander loosely as any damaging false statement; the legal definition requires communication to a third party — speaking falsehoods directly to the subject alone is not slander. Second, ordinary usage does not capture the special-damages requirement: everyday understanding assumes any slander is automatically compensable, but the law historically required proof of concrete harm for most spoken statements, making the distinction between slander per se and slander requiring special damages invisible to non-lawyers.
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Common Confusion
SLANDER vs. LIBEL: The most frequent confusion in both lay and historical legal sources. Both are forms of defamation, but slander is oral and libel is written or otherwise fixed in permanent form. The distinction matters because libel has historically been treated as the more serious wrong — defamatory matter in permanent form is presumed injurious without proof of actual damages, while spoken defamation generally requires special damages unless the statement falls into a per se category. Researchers encountering older authorities should note that this libel/slander divide was not always cleanly drawn, and some jurisdictions have partially eroded it.
SLANDER vs. DEFAMATION: Defamation is the genus; slander is a species. A researcher looking for doctrine applicable to oral defamation may need to search under both terms, as many modern authorities consolidate the analysis under "defamation" without always distinguishing oral from written.
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Core Elements
To establish slander, a plaintiff must generally show:
1. A false statement of fact (not opinion) about the plaintiff.
2. Oral publication — the statement was spoken to at least one person other than the plaintiff.
3. Falsity — the statement was not true.
4. Fault — at minimum, negligence; actual malice where the plaintiff is a public figure or public official.
5. Harm — either special damages (actual, quantifiable injury) for ordinary slander, or, for slander per se, harm presumed by law without proof of specific loss.
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Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Slander per se: Categories of spoken statements treated as so inherently harmful that damages are presumed and the plaintiff need not prove special damages. Historically, courts recognized four principal categories: (1) imputation of a crime for which corporal punishment could be inflicted; (2) imputation of a loathsome or contagious disease; (3) statements injurious to the plaintiff in their trade, business, or profession; and (4) imputation of serious sexual misconduct. Rapalje & Lawrence identifies the first three; modern authorities vary somewhat by jurisdiction.
Slander requiring special damages: All other oral defamatory statements, where the plaintiff must prove specific, actual harm flowing from the statement — lost employment, broken contracts, measurable reputational injury — as a threshold to recovery.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers face several navigational challenges with slander in the Law Mind corpus.
The oral/written divide was not always litigated cleanly. Historical cases sometimes blur the boundary — early broadcast and telephone cases, for instance, debated whether radio and telephone speech constituted slander or libel, and courts reached inconsistent results. If your research involves early media torts, check the defamation entry and encyclopedia chapter before assuming the slander label controls.
The special-damages requirement is a historical trap. Older authorities — including most of the historical dictionaries in this corpus — emphasize the distinction between slander per se and slander actionable only on proof of special damages. Modern consolidated defamation doctrine, particularly after constitutional overlay from the mid-twentieth century onward, has complicated but not eliminated this distinction. Researchers using nineteenth-century sources as authority must verify whether the special-damages rule they are citing survived subsequent development.
Malice terminology shifts across time. Bouvier's note on malice in this corpus reflects the common law understanding — ill-regulated conduct causing injury, not necessarily spite — which differs from the constitutional "actual malice" standard (knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for truth) that governs public figure defamation claims under modern First Amendment doctrine. These are not interchangeable concepts, and conflating them in historical research produces anachronism.
Jurisdictional variation is significant. Some jurisdictions have partially unified libel and slander under a single defamation standard; others preserve the traditional distinctions with care. Searching only under "slander" may miss applicable doctrine consolidated under "defamation" in modern statutes or restatements.
The corpus encyclopedia entry at torts_119 addresses the libel/slander divide within the broader defamation framework and should be consulted alongside any historical dictionary analysis.
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Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries in this corpus achieve broad agreement on the core definition: slander is oral defamation — false, malicious words spoken about another causing reputational injury. Black's (both editions), Burrill, and Bouvier all converge on this formulation. Burrill traces the oral character explicitly, citing Blackstone and Stephen's Commentaries.
Where the sources diverge usefully is on the role of malice and the special-damages structure. Bouvier's entry on malice is instructive: it resists reducing malice to subjective spite, instead describing conduct from an "ill-regulated mind not sufficiently cautious before it occasions an injury to another." This broader conception of malice aligns with the traditional common law fault standard and differs from both the lay meaning of the word and the constitutional standard developed in later centuries. Black's does not elaborate on malice in the same way.
Rapalje & Lawrence provides the most structured treatment of slander per se, identifying the classical categories and their rationale. This entry is the most analytically useful of the historical sources for a researcher trying to reconstruct the traditional common law framework.
What the historical dictionaries do not address: the constitutional dimension of defamation doctrine, the impact of the actual malice standard as applied to public figures, or the treatment of broadcast defamation. These gaps are significant and should alert researchers that the historical dictionary entries reflect the pre-constitutional common law only. The encyclopedia entry at torts_119 provides the modern doctrinal context.
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Jurisdictional Note
The distinction between slander per se and slander requiring special damages remains operative in most American jurisdictions but has been modified in some states by statute or judicial consolidation under a unified defamation standard. England and Commonwealth jurisdictions have their own historical treatment, reflected in some of the older sources in this corpus, and researchers should not assume English authorities map directly onto American doctrine or vice versa.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Defamation and Privacy Torts — Defamation — General Principles (Libel and Slander), The Law Mind Torts & Personal Injury Encyclopedia (torts_119)
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