What is the answer to the crossword clue "aspersion"?

There is more than one. 6 words in our dictionary fit this clue, and which one a puzzle wants depends on the length of the slot and the crossing letters. Four squares is SLUR, and it is the answer this clue wants nearly every time, since the alternatives are all seven letters or more.

How many letters is the answer to "aspersion"?

Anything from 4 to 11. The length with the most candidates is 7. Count the squares in your grid and read only that row of the table.

How reliable are these answers?

5 of the 6 appear in two independently compiled reference works, WordNet and Moby Thesaurus, rather than one. All of them are in the 173,000-word dictionary this site searches. None of them comes from any published puzzle.

Crossword clue

Aspersion crossword clue

6 words in our dictionary can answer the crossword clue "aspersion", from 4 letters up to 11, grouped below by the length of your slot.

Written by Blake Boege

Answers by length

Everything below fits the clue. What separates them is length, running from 4 letters to 11, so find your row and ignore the rest.

Letters	Answers
4	slurconfirmed by two sources
7	calumnyconfirmed by two sources slanderconfirmed by two sources
10	defamationconfirmed by two sources sprinklingconfirmed by two sources
11	denigration

What this list looks like

Setters reach for 4-letter answers constantly, and here that means SLUR.

Which one does the setter mean?

Four squares is SLUR, and it is the answer this clue wants nearly every time, since the alternatives are all seven letters or more.

How these differ

An aspersion is a damaging remark, and the word arrives through an odd route: it originally meant a sprinkling, which is why SPRINKLING sits in this list and why baptism by aspersion means by sprinkling rather than immersion. To cast aspersions was to sprinkle someone with dirt. SLUR is the everyday word and now often means a term of abuse rather than an accusation. CALUMNY and SLANDER are stronger and imply the remark is false, SLANDER being the spoken form of the tort and libel the written one. DEFAMATION covers both. DENIGRATION is literally a blackening.

Still stuck? Filter by the letters you have

Got a crossing letter? The word finder searches the same dictionary as this page, with a box for the first letter, the last, and anything in between.

Where these answers come from

Computed, not copied. Every word above is recorded by WordNet as meaning “aspersion” or as naming a kind of it, and each one is in the 173,000-wordlist this site searches. Moby Thesaurus lists 5 of them too. We hold no newspaper's answer key and reproduce no published crossword.

Common questions

What is the answer to the crossword clue "aspersion"?: There is more than one. 6 words in our dictionary fit this clue, and which one a puzzle wants depends on the length of the slot and the crossing letters. Four squares is SLUR, and it is the answer this clue wants nearly every time, since the alternatives are all seven letters or more.
How many letters is the answer to "aspersion"?: Anything from 4 to 11. The length with the most candidates is 7. Count the squares in your grid and read only that row of the table.
How reliable are these answers?: 5 of the 6 appear in two independently compiled reference works, WordNet and Moby Thesaurus, rather than one. All of them are in the 173,000-word dictionary this site searches. None of them comes from any published puzzle.