follow the money
follow the money verb: to analyze money flows in order to uncover corruption or other criminal activities.
Verb
follow the money (third-person singular simple present follows the money, present participle following the money, simple past and past participle followed the money)
- To analyze money flows in order to uncover corruption or other criminal activities.
- No, I have to do this my way. You tell me what you know, and I'll confirm. I'll keep you in the right direction if I can, but that's all. Just… follow the money.1976, William Goldman, All the President's Men, spoken by Deep Throat
- Then follow the money: We know that President Bashar Assad turned an ophthalmologist's blind eye to Saddam's use of the Syrian port of Tartus to import missile fuel components from China and night-vision goggles from Russia.2003 April 21, William Safire, “Follow the Money”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
Forms of follow the money
| third-person singular present | follows the money |
|---|---|
| present participle | following the money |
| past participle | followed the money |
| past | followed the money |
Origin of follow the money
Popularized in the film All the President's Men (1976).
Questions about follow the money
- What does follow the money mean?
- Follow the money means to analyze money flows in order to uncover corruption or other criminal activities.
- What part of speech is follow the money?
- Follow the money is a verb.
- What is the past tense of follow the money?
- The past tense of follow the money is followed the money.
Words near follow the money in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: follow the money (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: “follow the money.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/follow_the_money. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.