the.com/libel

means A false published statement that damages someone's reputation — defamation in written, printed, or otherwise fixed form rather than spoken aloud.

from From Latin 'libellus,' meaning 'little book' or 'pamphlet' — itself a diminutive of 'liber,' meaning 'book.' In medieval legal Latin, 'libellus' came to mean a formal written complaint or petition submitted to a court. English borrowed it through French in that legal sense, and over centuries the word narrowed from 'any little document' to specifically 'a damaging written accusation' — the pamphlet shrank down to the slander it contained.