Word.ws English Dictionary

rape card

rape card noun: a rape accusation made in bad faith.

Noun

rape card

  1. (derogatory) A rape accusation made in bad faith.
    • She [Potiphar's wife] then played the rape card, and Joseph was thrown into prison. If I had been Joseph, I would be thinking, Hey, God, You gave me those dreams! Look at me now.1998, Dwight Reighard, Pat Springle, Discovering Your North Star, page 345
    • Furthermore, following the genocide, some women were questioned with the “rape card,” namely their fellow residents wondered if they had managed to spare their lives by sleeping with attackers, i.e., facilitating rape instead of immediate death (Sharlach, 2000).2014, Lori Poloni-Staudinger, Candice D. Ortbals, Terrorism and Violent Conflict, page 21

Origin of rape card

Suggesting a playing card conferring an advantage in a game; compare race card, play the gender card.

Questions about rape card

What does rape card mean?
Rape card means a rape accusation made in bad faith.
What part of speech is rape card?
Rape card is a noun.

Words near rape card in the dictionary

  1. rape blossoms
  2. rape cake
  3. rape cakes
  4. rape camp
  5. rape camps
  6. rape card
  7. rape culture
  8. rape cultures
  9. rape face
  10. rape kit
  11. rape kits

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rape card (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: “rape card.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rape_card. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.