Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To search for and expose misconduct in public life.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A rake for scraping muck or filth. Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- obs. A rake for scraping up muck or dung. See
muckrake , v. i., below. - intransitive verb To seek for, expose, or charge, especially habitually, corruption, real or alleged, on the part of public men and corporations.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb to search for and expose
corruption orscandal especially as done by ajournalist .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb explore and expose misconduct and scandals concerning public figures
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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HOFFER: And it has a kind of muckrake -- or a sort of -- you know, muckrakers at the beginning of the 20th century were attacking the robber barons, the great industries, for their abuses, the way they abused their workers, they way they abused public trust, and so on.
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It is neither our purpose nor our desire merely to "muckrake" Pittsburg or any other city.
"Instead of an Article : About Pittsburg and, Incidentally, about Editing a Magazine" 1910
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The noun "muckrake" (literally, a rake for "muck," i.e., manure) rose out of the dung heap and into the realm of literary metaphor in 1684.
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Come on, every year the Globe and the Herald muckrake the dozens of Boston Police officers whose overtime and detail pay pushes them over the $100K/year mark.
In the ballpark Matthew Guerrieri 2009
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Irrespective of the director's stated intent (see my interview below) to not muckrake (for lack of a better phrase) he inadvertently does, while straddling a fine line, also inadvertently serving the company's interest, by structuring a grand apologia and cautionary note to the future.
Michael Vazquez: Weekend Film: On Into Eternity Michael Vazquez 2011
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Irrespective of the director's stated intent (see my interview below) to not muckrake (for lack of a better phrase) he inadvertently does, while straddling a fine line, also inadvertently serving the company's interest, by structuring a grand apologia and cautionary note to the future.
Michael Vazquez: Weekend Film: On Into Eternity Michael Vazquez 2011
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CNN stop covering this moron just to muckrake Palin, practice some responsible journalism .... heck, even the liberals I know are getting tired of your sensationalism.
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If you want to muckrake old business, let's talk about the Kennedy's and Marilyn Monroe or Chappaquiddik.
Obama uses Daschle to make blue-collar pitch in new SD spot 2008
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But there's a problem: if you are going to muckrake with science, you need to be able to refute scientific evidence which doesn't agree with your hypothesis.
Trevor Butterworth: The Case Against Worrying About Phthalates in Children's Toys 2008
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It's one thing to muckrake with our military under the guise of a threat to our nation's security, but that excuse went out the window years ago.
Barack Obama Redefines the "Center" of our Nation's Defense Against Terror 2008
hernesheir commented on the word muckrake
"A man could look no way but downwards, with a muckrake in his hands."
John Bunyan (1628-1688), Pilgrim's Progress
September 20, 2009
chained_bear commented on the word muckrake
Hence Teddy Roosevelt's public comment that spawned the label muckraker and the WordNet meaning above (though it's not phrased particularly well).
September 21, 2009