the.com/discredit
Killing the message by shooting the messenger's reputation instead.
means To damage someone's reputation or cast doubt on a claim so that it's no longer believed or trusted.
from Built from the negating prefix 'dis-' plus 'credit,' which traces back to Latin 'credere,' meaning 'to believe' or 'to trust' — the same root that gives us 'credible' and 'creed.' So to discredit someone is literally to strip away the 'believability' credit they'd built up, leaving their word worthless in the eyes of others.
- not disprove
- attacks the source, dodges the actual argument
- favorite tool
- ad hominem's respectable older cousin
- root meaning
- literally means to un-believe someone
- backfire risk
- overdoing it often discredits the discreditor