sealion
/ˈsiːlaɪən/
sealion verb: to intrude on a conversation with probing questions in an attempt to engage in unwanted debate, usually disingenuously as a form of harassment or trolling. Also the alternative form of sea lion.
Verb
sealion (third-person singular simple present sealions, present participle sealioning, simple past and past participle sealioned)
- To intrude on a conversation with probing questions in an attempt to engage in unwanted debate, usually disingenuously as a form of harassment or trolling.
- There, Peggy speaks for every angry marginalised person who’s ever been sealioned or tone-policed in a disagreement.2015 January 28, Andrew Wheeler, “Agent Carter’ Recap, Episode 4: The Blitzkrieg Button”, in Comics Alliance, archived from the original on 03 Feb 2015
- The purpose of sealioning never to actually learn or become more informed.2015 March 24, Sarah Seltzer, “Beyond Mansplaining: A New Lexicon of Misogynist Trolling Behaviors”, in Flavorwire, archived from the original on 25 Mar 2015
Noun
sealion (plural sealions)
- One who engages in sealioning.
- Randi's list is a key reason I've been able to continue to use Twitter, as it prevents relentless ideological sealions from crowding my mentions.2014 December 2, Glenn Fleishman, “Twitter takes aim at trolls—and promises more”, in Boing Boing, archived from the original on 03 Dec 2014
- Synonyms:
- sealioner
Also used as
sealion is also the alternative form of sea lion.
Synonyms of sealion
Forms of sealion
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | sealions |
| present participle | sealioning |
| past participle | sealioned |
| past | sealioned |
| alternative form (rare) | sea lion |
| Noun | |
| plural | sealions |
Origin of sealion
The verb is from “The Terrible Sea Lion”, a 2014 strip in the webcomic Wondermark, in which a character expresses a dislike of sea lions and a passing sea lion repeatedly, intrusively asks the character to justify this.
Words formed from sealion
Questions about sealion
- What does sealion mean?
- Sealion means to intrude on a conversation with probing questions in an attempt to engage in unwanted debate, usually disingenuously as a form of harassment or trolling.
- What part of speech is sealion?
- Sealion can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce sealion?
- Sealion is pronounced /ˈsiːlaɪən/.
- What is the past tense of sealion?
- The past tense of sealion is sealioned.
Words near sealion in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: sealion (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: En-au-sealion.ogg.
Cite this entry: “sealion.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sealion. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.