witch-hunt

W w

Transcription

- US Pronunciation
- US IPA
- UK Pronunciation
- UK IPA
- [wich huhnt]
- /wɪtʃ hʌnt/
- /wɪtʃ hʌnt/

- US Pronunciation
- US IPA
- [wich huhnt]
- /wɪtʃ hʌnt/

Definitions of witch-hunt word

verb with object witch-hunt to subject to a witch hunt. 1
noun witch-hunt an intensive effort to discover and expose disloyalty, subversion, dishonesty, or the like, usually based on slight, doubtful, or irrelevant evidence. 1
countable noun witch-hunt A witch-hunt is an attempt to find and punish a particular group of people who are being blamed for something, often simply because of their opinions and not because they have actually done anything wrong. 0
noun witch-hunt a rigorous campaign to round up or expose dissenters on the pretext of safeguarding the welfare of the public 0
noun witch-hunt an investigation carried out ostensibly to uncover disloyalty, subversive political activity, etc., usually conducted with much publicity and often relying upon inconclusive evidence and capitalizing on public fear of unpopular opinions 0

See all 5 definitions of witch-hunt

Information block about the term

Origin of witch-hunt

First appearance:

before 1925

One of the 11% newest English words

First recorded in 1925-30

Historical Comparancy

Parts of speech for Witch-hunt

noun

adjective

verb

adverb

pronoun

preposition

conjunction

determiner

exclamation

Full grammatical hierarchy of Witch-hunt

witch-hunt popularity

A pretty common term. Usually people know it’s meaning, but prefer to use a more spread out synonym. About 36% of English native speakers know the meaning and use word.

According to our data about 62% of words is more used. This is a rare but used term. It occurs in the pages of specialized literature and in the speech of educated people.