Word.ws English Dictionary

ragebait

/ˈɹeɪd͡ʒˌbeɪt/

ragebait noun: content that intentionally provokes anger or fear in order to increase viewership or interaction.

Noun

ragebait (countable and uncountable, plural ragebaits)

  1. (Internet) Content that intentionally provokes anger or fear in order to increase viewership or interaction.
    • Holonym: outrage culture
    • Near-synonyms: outrage porn, provocation
    Antonyms:
    gigglebait, joybait
    1. (Internet, broadly, humorous) Something annoying or upseting.
      • My university's new, buggy as hell enrollment system is actually ragebait.

Verb

ragebait (third-person singular simple present ragebaits, present participle ragebaiting, simple past and past participle ragebaited)

  1. (Internet) To produce content that provokes anger or fear in order to increase viewership or interaction.
  2. (broadly, humorous, transitive) To annoy or upset through one's behavior.
    • got ragebaited by my cat
    Synonyms:
    infuriate

ragebait meaning in Telugu and Indonesian

ragebait in Telugu

to produce content that provokes anger in order to increase interaction
రెచ్చగొట్టు reccagoṭṭu

ragebait in Indonesian

to produce content that provokes anger in order to increase interaction
pancing amarah

Examples of ragebait in a sentence

  • Whether it’s weekend tweets by the president or Rudy Giuliani’s constant availability to journalists and Fox News hosts, Trumpists flood the zone with misinformation or ragebait.2019 November 1, Charlie Warzel, “Can Democrats Compete With Trump’s Twitter Feed?”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on...
  • Beware ragebait, social media that traffic in fear.2019 December 12, Jessica Guynn, “Facebook disinformation in the 2020 presidential election: What you can do to stop its spread”, in USA...
  • The Trump campaign was unabashed in 2016 and beyond about its plan to “flood the zone” with garbage or ragebait.2020 February 13, Charlie Warzel, “Mike Bloomberg Is Hacking Your Attention”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 07 Jun...
  • They’ll keep pumping out those Facebook ads, which will bombard voters who already support him with endless ragebait.2020 July 16, Paul Waldman, “Trump reshuffles his campaign. If only he could reshuffle himself.”, in The Washington Post, archived from the...

Synonyms of ragebait

Antonyms

Forms of ragebait

Noun
pluralragebaits
alternative formrage-bait
alternative formrage bait
Verb
third-person singular presentragebaits
present participleragebaiting
past participleragebaited
pastragebaited

Origin of ragebait

From rage + -bait (“manipulation to elicit a particular response”). Compare rage farm.

Words formed from ragebait

Questions about ragebait

What does ragebait mean?
Ragebait means content that intentionally provokes anger or fear in order to increase viewership or interaction.
What is ragebait in Telugu?
Ragebait in Telugu is రెచ్చగొట్టు (reccagoṭṭu). See Ragebait meaning in Telugu.
How do you use ragebait in a sentence?
Whether it’s weekend tweets by the president or Rudy Giuliani’s constant availability to journalists and Fox News hosts, Trumpists flood the zone with misinformation or ragebait.
What part of speech is ragebait?
Ragebait can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce ragebait?
Ragebait is pronounced /ˈɹeɪd͡ʒˌbeɪt/.
What is the plural of ragebait?
The plural of ragebait is ragebaits.

Words near ragebait in the dictionary

  1. rage-quits
  2. rage-quitted
  3. rage-quitting
  4. rageaholic
  5. rageaholics
  6. ragebait
  7. ragebaited
  8. ragebaiter
  9. ragebaiters
  10. ragebaiting
  11. ragebaits

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ragebait (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-ragebait.wav.

Cite this entry: “ragebait.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ragebait. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.