concern troll
concern troll noun: someone who posts to an Internet forum or newsgroup, claiming to share its goals while deliberately working against those goals, typically, by claiming "concern" about group plans to engage in productive activity, urging members instead to attempt some activity that would damage the group's credibility, or alternatively to abandon group projects entirely.
Noun
concern troll (plural concern trolls)
- Someone who posts to an Internet forum or newsgroup, claiming to share its goals while deliberately working against those goals, typically, by claiming "concern" about group plans to engage in productive activity, urging members instead to attempt some activity that would damage the group's credibility, or alternatively to abandon group projects entirely.
- Contrarians aren't "champions of the scientific method," as Pearce posits. They might more accurately be described as ‘concern trolls’, feigning concern at every little climate uncertainty or issue they can use to manufacture doubt and delay the action necessary to solve the climate problem.2013 August 2, Dana Nuccitelli, “It's climate scientists, not concern trolls who champion the scientific method”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
- Various concern trolls repeatedly explained why #GamerGate needed a leader and how #GamerGate would never accomplish anything or be respected without a leader, concerns that were generally blown off with multiple GamerGaters declaring that they were the leader of #GamerGate or denouncing the...2015, Vox Day [pseudonym; Theodore Robert Beale], “Counterattack”, in SJWs Always lie: Taking Down the Thought Police, Kouvola, Kymenlaakso: Castalia House, →ISBN, page 91
Verb
concern troll (third-person singular simple present concern trolls, present participle concern trolling, simple past and past participle concern trolled)
- To troll as a concern troll would.
- I think I agree with just about all the substance of David Brooks' concern trolling about the GOP (see, e.g., my final American Prospect column which made some similar points), but this minor aside strikes me as wrongheaded in an interesting way:[…]2007 April 30, Matthew Yglesias, “Smells Like Team Spirit”, in The Atlantic
- Foremost among the critical governments were the expansionist northern Italian kingdom of Piedmont, which had territorial designs on the papal domains, and Piedmont's ally Great Britain, whose policy was to concern-troll for alleged papal misgovernment in order to delegitimize Pius's rule.2015, Max Longley, For the Union and the Catholic Church: Four Converts in the Civil War
Forms of concern troll
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | concern trolls |
| alternative form | concern-troll |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | concern trolls |
| present participle | concern trolling |
| past participle | concern trolled |
| past | concern trolled |
Questions about concern troll
- What does concern troll mean?
- Concern troll means someone who posts to an Internet forum or newsgroup, claiming to share its goals while deliberately working against those goals, typically, by claiming "concern" about group plans to engage in productive activity, urging members instead to attempt some activity that would damage the group's credibility, or alternatively to abandon group projects entirely.
- What part of speech is concern troll?
- Concern troll can be a noun or a verb.
- What is the plural of concern troll?
- The plural of concern troll is concern trolls.
Words near concern troll in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: concern troll (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-concern troll.wav.
Cite this entry: “concern troll.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/concern_troll. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.