Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use debunk in a sentence

22 example sentences · verb, noun

Debunk means to discredit, or expose to ridicule the falsehood or the exaggerated claims of something; to refute. Example: “The explosion story was thoroughly debunked on National Public Radio in November 1999.”

Examples of debunk by meaning

verbTo discredit, or expose to ridicule the falsehood or the exaggerated claims of something; to refute.

  • The explosion story was thoroughly debunked on National Public Radio in November 1999.
  • debunk a theory
  • We began to debunk, with the aid of such Bowdlerisations of Freud as now trickled though, human motive, and learned to diagnose our mental discomforts as repressions and inhibitions—an accomplishment which gave me a good deal of relief.1955, Phyllis Bentley, “Post-war”, in Noble in Reason, Bath: Cedric Chivers Ltd, published 1972, →ISBN, page 159

More sentences with debunk

  • Scientists debunk the myth that gum stays in the human stomach for seven years.From the entry myth
  • Of course, modern-day theories debunk that idea.From the entry modern-day
  • The authors discuss some of the edu-myths of the time and spend considerable effort debunking them.2020 April 7, Grant Frost, The Attack on Nova Scotia Schools: The Story Behind 25 Years of Tumultuous Change, Formac Publishing Company…. From the entry edumyth
  • Most red pill thinkers will have already debunked this one and replaced it with a better story.2017, Peter Wright, Red Pill Psychology: Psychology for men in a gynocentric world. From the entry red pill
  • Debunking military myths and the deglorification of war is nothing new in Israeli culture.2008 January 20, Isabel Kershner, “Dark Fissures of an Israeli Soldier’s Soul”, in New York Times. From the entry deglorification
  • Knowledge must be debunkable and stands only until it is debunked.1995, Jonathan Rauch, Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought, page 51. From the entry debunkable
  • Hitler's conquest of Europe, however, was a physical debunking of capitalism.1941, George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn, Pt. II. From the entry capitalism
  • But more than six months into his new term, those much-hyped conspiracy theories have either been debunked or quietly fallen apart.2025 July 10, Jesus Mesa, “'We've Been Played': MAGA Faces Its Own Disappointment With Trump”, in Newsweek. From the entry expose
  • Kids kept yelling ingrained churchisms for us to debunk, a la MythBusters: " God helps those who help themselves!2024, Jason Kirk, Hell Is a World Without You. From the entry churchism
  • It debunks the primacy of word over image in Western culture and suggests that the two are equal partners in meaning-making.December 25 2016, Amruta Patil, “The book in my hand”, in The Hindu. From the entry primacy
  • Researchers should stick to their knitting, finding cancer cures and discovering new shades of lipstick, and refrain from debunking history.1975 Nov. 21, "Puritans Denied Drumstick" (editorial), Spokane Daily Chronicle, p. 4 (retrieved 1 Oct 2013). From the entry stick to one's knitting
  • While there is value in having students debunk conspiracy theories, I was wary of centering that specific argument without additional textual documentation.2022, Lightning Jay, “Constructing Local History Units with Document-Based Lessons”, in The History Teacher, volume 5, number 2, page 340. From the entry hit job
  • This trend reached its logical end in an op-ed by Paul Krugman, who flatly debunked the truism that human life was "priceless".Paul Krugman (28 May 2020), “On the economics of not dying: What good is increasing G.D.P. if it kills you?”, in The New York Times, New…. From the entry priceless
  • The theory is that it is easier to “prebunk” disinformation before it spreads than to debunk it once it has taken hold.2019 October 29, John Thornhill, “Developing tools in the fight against deepfakes”, in Financial Times, page 15. From the entry prebunk
  • Calamy alone is not debunked; and Calamy has defended omphaloskepsis and has set himself the ideal of free personal contemplation and recollection.1975, Donald Watt, Aldous Huxley, the Critical Heritage, →ISBN, page 308. From the entry omphaloskepsis
  • The noble man must be praised (and perhaps also debunked) and the rogue condemned (with appreciation, where relevant, of his charm or torturedness).1973, D. G. Dufty, Grant Stewart Harman, Keith John Swan, Historians at work: investigating and recreating the past, page 59. From the entry torturedness
  • Over the years, openSNP became one of the largest repositories of its kind, used in research, education, and even community-led investigations like debunking flawed CFS genetic studies.2025 April 2, Bill Toulas, “Genetic data site openSNP to close and delete data over privacy concerns”, in BleepingComputer. From the entry repository
  • Twitter on Monday announced a new effort to preemptively debunk, or “prebunk” in Twitter parlance, some of the most commonly circulated false and misleading information about the election.2020 October 27th, Mike Isaac, “Twitter to Highlight Accurate Voting Information”, in New York Times, page A 15. From the entry prebunk
  • In the end, perhaps these deflections are easier than confronting the reality and debunking some of the less helpful stories a certain section of England likes to tell about itself.2023 July 4, Marina Hyde, “Who’s for political Bazball with Rishi? Voters? Tories? Anyone?”, in The Guardian. From the entry stiff

Meaning of debunk

  1. verb To discredit, or expose to ridicule the falsehood or the exaggerated claims of something; to refute.
  2. noun A debunking; the act by which something is debunked.

Full definition of debunk

Questions about debunk in a sentence

How do you use debunk in a sentence?
Debunk is used as a verb and noun. For example: “The explosion story was thoroughly debunked on National Public Radio in November 1999.”
What is a short sentence with debunk?
“debunk a theory”
What does debunk mean?
Debunk means to discredit, or expose to ridicule the falsehood or the exaggerated claims of something; to refute.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: debunk (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this page: “How to use debunk in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/debunk. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.