Damn with faint praise

According to the OED, this expression means to praise so half-heartedly or disingenuously as to imply condemnation. The exact phrase is generally attributed to Alexander Pope c. 1723 but William Wycherley, the English dramatist, in his comedy The Plain Dealer (1676) wrote something very similar. “And with faint praises one another damn.” There is further evidence that the concept itself may be even older. The Roman writer Favorinus c.110 AD has been translated as writing, “It is more shameful to be praised faintly and coldly than to be censured violently.”