Witch-hunt

Quick meaning: Witch-hunt is a noun meaning (now chiefly historical) A search for people believed to be using sorcery or harmful magic, typically in order to persecute or punish them.

Meaning

(now chiefly historical) A search for people believed to be using sorcery or harmful magic, typically in order to persecute or punish them.

More Meanings

1. (by extension) An attempt to find and punish or harass a group of people perceived as a threat, usually on ideological or political grounds.
2. (by extension) A public or political campaign or investigation which smears a person or group.
3. (informal) To perform a witch-hunt.

Example Sentences

Rank-and-file Communists everywhere are led away on a senseless witch-hunt after 'Trotskyists'.

To-night ye will see. It is the great witch-hunt, and many will be smelt out as wizards and slain.

The media is really on a witch-hunt against me. False reporting, and plenty of it - but we will prevail!

The rupturing of British rule over India in the rebellion of 1857 permitted a great witch-hunt, with lethal effects, to occur among the tribes of northern India.

Word Forms

• witch-hunts
• witchhunt
• witch-hunting
• witch-hunted

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include witch, hunt, witchfinding, witchism, witchdom, maleficiation.

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