witch-hunt

• witchhunt, witch hunt

From witch +‎ hunt.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈwɪtʃhʌnt/

• Audio (US):

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witch-hunt (plural witch-hunts)

1. (now chiefly historical) A search for people believed to be using sorcery or harmful magic, typically in order to persecute or punish them.
   • 1885, H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon's Mines:

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

   • 2017, Ronald Hutton, The Witch, Yale University Press, published 2018, page 27:

     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.

2. (by extension) An attempt to find and punish or harass a group of people perceived as a threat, usually on ideological or political grounds.
   • 1938 April, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Homage to Catalonia, London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC:

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

3. (by extension) A public or political campaign or investigation which smears a person or group.
   • 2008, Mike Adams, Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts "Womyn" on Campus, Penguin, →ISBN:

     Even fewer people could believe that the UNCW administration would actually undertake a witch hunt against me, even going so far as to invoke their right to read my personal e-mails because they were on the university's system.

   • 2012, Hugh Maguire, My First 40 Jobs: A Memoir, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 308:

     I defended myself vigorously on that complaint as well; also mentioning that Julie Ann Wilks had always disliked me and had been conducting “a witch hunt” against me. As soon as I said the words “witch hunt” Katy interrupted and wouldn't let me continue […]

   • 2016 May 15, Donald Trump, tweet quoted in 2019, Lindy West, The Witches Are Coming, Hachette Books (→ISBN)

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

   • 2025 July 22, Jennifer Bowers Bahney, “'Struggling' Trump spirals as 'usual playbook' fails to get him out of jam: report”, in Raw Story‎^[1]:

     “It is striking how poorly his usual playbook will work for the Epstein files debacle,” Ford wrote, adding that Trump “cannot credibly claim that he is the victim of some kind of ‘witch hunt,’ even though he is trying to do so.”

witch-hunt (third-person singular simple present witch-hunts, present participle witch-hunting, simple past and past participle witch-hunted)

1. (informal) To perform a witch-hunt.