witch-hunt

• witchhunt, witch hunt

From witch +‎ hunt.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈwɪtʃhʌnt/

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!

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.