Kinsley gaffe
Kinsley gaffe noun: a mistake whereby a politician inadvertently says something truthful which they had not meant to reveal.
Noun
Kinsley gaffe (plural Kinsley gaffes)
- A mistake whereby a politician inadvertently says something truthful which they had not meant to reveal.
- They said it had been only a trial run, posted in error, showing hypothetical results from one small electoral district. You might call this a sort of Kinsley gaffe on a national scale.2013 October 9, Max Fisher, The Washington Post
- Give Thune credit for candor, or at least for a Kinsley gaffe: Intentionally or not, he made clear that the game was getting the best available walk-back and moving on.2018, David A. Graham, “Trump Can Never Go Too Far for Republicans”, in The Atlantic
Forms of Kinsley gaffe
| plural | Kinsley gaffes |
|---|
Origin of Kinsley gaffe
Named after American journalist Michael Kinsley (b. 1951), who drew attention to the phenomenon.
Questions about Kinsley gaffe
- What does Kinsley gaffe mean?
- Kinsley gaffe means a mistake whereby a politician inadvertently says something truthful which they had not meant to reveal.
- What part of speech is Kinsley gaffe?
- Kinsley gaffe is a noun.
- What is the plural of Kinsley gaffe?
- The plural of Kinsley gaffe is Kinsley gaffes.
Words near Kinsley gaffe in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Kinsley gaffe (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: “Kinsley gaffe.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/kinsley_gaffe. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.