"praise with faint damns" meaning in English

{
  "etymology_text": "Inversion of damn with faint praise.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "praises with faint damns",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "praising with faint damns",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "praised with faint damns",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "praised with faint damns",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*",
        "head": "praise with faint damns"
      },
      "expansion": "praise with faint damns (third-person singular simple present praises with faint damns, present participle praising with faint damns, simple past and past participle praised with faint damns)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1885, Henry Augustin Beers, Nathaniel Parker Willis, page 194:",
          "text": "The former accordingly greeted his book with warm approval, and the latter praised it with faint damns.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015 February 21, Blake Morrison, “Blake Morrison on Anthony Burgess the critic — ‘he aspired to know everything’”, in The Guardian, retrieved 2024-03-03:",
          "text": "But his emphasis on the novel’s interest in sex was a come-on – a way of praising it with faint damns.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To provide minimal critique, implying that the criticism is the worst that could be said of someone or something."
      ],
      "id": "en-praise_with_faint_damns-en-verb-doTeobAC",
      "links": [
        [
          "critique",
          "critique"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, transitive) To provide minimal critique, implying that the criticism is the worst that could be said of someone or something."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "transitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "praise with faint damns"
}

{
  "etymology_text": "Inversion of damn with faint praise.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "praises with faint damns",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "praising with faint damns",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "praised with faint damns",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "praised with faint damns",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*",
        "head": "praise with faint damns"
      },
      "expansion": "praise with faint damns (third-person singular simple present praises with faint damns, present participle praising with faint damns, simple past and past participle praised with faint damns)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English transitive verbs",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1885, Henry Augustin Beers, Nathaniel Parker Willis, page 194:",
          "text": "The former accordingly greeted his book with warm approval, and the latter praised it with faint damns.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015 February 21, Blake Morrison, “Blake Morrison on Anthony Burgess the critic — ‘he aspired to know everything’”, in The Guardian, retrieved 2024-03-03:",
          "text": "But his emphasis on the novel’s interest in sex was a come-on – a way of praising it with faint damns.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To provide minimal critique, implying that the criticism is the worst that could be said of someone or something."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "critique",
          "critique"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, transitive) To provide minimal critique, implying that the criticism is the worst that could be said of someone or something."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "transitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "praise with faint damns"
}