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debunk

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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WOTD – 15 April 2010

Etymology

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From de- +‎ bunk (from bunkum, from Buncombe County) 1923.

Pronunciation

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Verb

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debunk (third-person singular simple present debunks, present participle debunking, simple past and past participle debunked)

  1. (transitive) To discredit, or expose to ridicule the falsehood or the exaggerated claims of something.
    The explosion story was thoroughly debunked on National Public Radio in November 1999.
    debunk a theory
    • 1955, Phyllis Bentley, “Post-war”, in Noble in Reason, Bath: Cedric Chivers Ltd, published 1972, →ISBN, page 159:
      We began to debunk, with the aid of such Bowdlerisations of Freud as now trickled though, human motive, and learned to diagnose our mental discomforts as repressions and inhibitions—an accomplishment which gave me a good deal of relief.
    • 2009, Charles T. Tart, The End of Materialism, page 67:
      This is what I mean by saying that the pseudoskeptics aren't actually skeptics in a genuine sense; they're believers in some other system, out to attack and debunk what they don't believe in while trying to appear open minded and scientific, even though they're not.
    • 2016 December 25, Amruta Patil, “The book in my hand”, in The Hindu‎[1]:
      I am reading Nick Sousanis’ PhD dissertation-as-a-comic Unflattening. It debunks the primacy of word over image in Western culture and suggests that the two are equal partners in meaning-making.
    • 2021 January 27, Elizabeth Williamson, “Rioters Followed a Long Conspiratorial Road to the Capitol”, in The New York Times‎[2]:
      For many of the Capitol rioters and others who believe Mr. Trump won, it was not a large leap to “Stop the Steal” from a pathway of conspiratorial steppingstones that included the “Pizzagate” claim of 2016 that Democrats were running a child sex ring in the back of a popular Washington pizza parlor, the debunked allegation that a low-level Democratic National Committee aide was murdered for leaking Hillary Clinton’s emails and many more.
    • 2024 January 10, Christian Wolmar, “A time for change? ... just as it was back in issue 262”, in RAIL, number 1000, page 61:
      Another of my favourite themes has been debunking promises of new technology. Over the years, I have enjoyed watching the lack of progress on driverless cars, drone deliveries, hyperloop, and maglev.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Noun

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debunk (plural debunks)

  1. (informal) A debunking; the act by which something is debunked.

Anagrams

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