dog-whistle

dog-whis·tle

D d

Definitions of dog-whistle word

noun dog-whistle Politics. a political strategy, statement, slogan, etc., that conveys a controversial, secondary message understood only by those who support the message: His criticism of welfare was a dog whistle appealing to racist voters. 1
adjective dog-whistle relating to the targeting of potentially controversial messages to specific voters while avoiding offending those voters with whom the message will not be popular 0
verb dog-whistle to employ this kind of political strategy 0

before 1995

One of the 1% newest English words

First recorded in 1995-2000; < dog whistle a high-frequency whistle audible to dogs but not humans

noun

adjective

verb

adverb

pronoun

preposition

conjunction

determiner

exclamation

This term is known only to a narrow circle of people with rare knowledge. Only 7% of English native speakers know the meaning of this word.

According to our data most of word are more popular. This word is almost not used. It has a much more popular synonym.