Word.ws English Dictionary

birtherism

/ˈbɝθɚˌɪz(ə)m/

birtherism noun: a movement in the United States of America that doubts or denies that the 44th President, Barack Obama, is a natural-born U.S. citizen, thus implying that he is ineligible to be President.

Noun

birtherism (uncountable)

  1. (US, derogatory, often, slang) A movement in the United States of America that doubts or denies that the 44th President, Barack Obama, is a natural-born U.S. citizen, thus implying that he is ineligible to be President.
    • But Obama's plunge into the fever swamp of birtherism was just the latest detour on what had already been a long, strange trip—with many miles still to go.2013, John Heilemann, Mark Halperin, Double Down, →ISBN, page 12

Origin of birtherism

From birther + -ism.

Questions about birtherism

What does birtherism mean?
Birtherism means a movement in the United States of America that doubts or denies that the 44th President, Barack Obama, is a natural-born U.S. citizen, thus implying that he is ineligible to be President.
What part of speech is birtherism?
Birtherism is a noun.
How do you pronounce birtherism?
Birtherism is pronounced /ˈbɝθɚˌɪz(ə)m/.

Words near birtherism in the dictionary

  1. birthdays
  2. birthdom
  3. birthdoms
  4. birthed
  5. birther
  6. birtherism
  7. birtherist
  8. birtherists
  9. birthers
  10. birthfamilies
  11. birthfamily

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: birtherism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-birtherism.ogg.

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