blockbusting
blockbusting noun: a technique used to encourage people to sell their property by giving the impression that a neighborhood is changing for the worse, especially by implying a change in its racial makeup.
Noun
blockbusting (uncountable)
- A technique used to encourage people to sell their property by giving the impression that a neighborhood is changing for the worse, especially by implying a change in its racial makeup.
- Sonny W. Walker, another of the three black salesmen employed along with three whites by Concord Realty, 3524 Church Avenue, picked up the thread of Mr. Harris's bitter disclaimer that it took deliberate blockbusting—sometimes called panic redlining—to make whites move out of East Flatbush.1969 December 9, Linda Charlton, “'Blockbusting': Dilemma in East Flatbush Area”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
Adjective
blockbusting (not comparable)
- Having the characteristics of a blockbuster; hugely successful.
- a blockbusting movie
Origin of blockbusting
From block + busting.
Words formed from blockbusting
Questions about blockbusting
- What does blockbusting mean?
- Blockbusting means a technique used to encourage people to sell their property by giving the impression that a neighborhood is changing for the worse, especially by implying a change in its racial makeup.
- What part of speech is blockbusting?
- Blockbusting can be a noun or an adjective.
Words near blockbusting in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: blockbusting (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.
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Cite this entry: “blockbusting.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/blockbusting. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.