Word.ws English Dictionary

Plebgate

Plebgate proper noun: a 2012 scandal in which Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell was accused of swearing at Downing Street police officers and calling them "plebs"; subsequent to Mitchell's resignation, CCTV and other evidence was revealed which appeared to call into question some of the evidence against him.

Proper noun

Plebgate

  1. (UK, informal) A 2012 scandal in which Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell was accused of swearing at Downing Street police officers and calling them "plebs"; subsequent to Mitchell's resignation, CCTV and other evidence was revealed which appeared to call into question some of the evidence against him.
    • In government, meanwhile, Theresa May is the first home secretary in memory not to have appeared petrified of the police, while for many in her party, Plebgate was the moment at which the scales fell from their eyes as far as the cops were concerned.2015 August 7, Marina Hyde, “Forget law and order: today’s police officers dream of going viral”, in The Guardian
    Synonyms:
    Gategate, Plodgate

Synonyms of Plebgate

Origin of Plebgate

From pleb + -gate.

Questions about Plebgate

What does Plebgate mean?
Plebgate means a 2012 scandal in which Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell was accused of swearing at Downing Street police officers and calling them "plebs"; subsequent to Mitchell's resignation, CCTV and other evidence was revealed which appeared to call into question some of the evidence against him.
What part of speech is Plebgate?
Plebgate is a proper noun.

Words near Plebgate in the dictionary

  1. plebes
  2. plebeskin
  3. plebeskins
  4. plebeyan
  5. plebeyans
  6. Plebgate
  7. plebian
  8. plebianism
  9. plebianisms
  10. plebians
  11. plebicolist

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Plebgate (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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