Word.ws English Dictionary

smear campaign

smear campaign noun: an effort to damage or call into question someone's reputation, by propounding negative propaganda.

Noun

smear campaign (plural smear campaigns)

  1. (idiomatic) An effort to damage or call into question someone's reputation, by propounding negative propaganda.
    • His opponent said it was all a smear campaign to make him look bad in the eyes of the voters.
    • Fisher read the article, became incensed, and started a smear campaign against the brothers’ business which proved immensely damaging.1993, “The Ballad Of Climie Fisher”, in Trouble Over Bridgwater, performed by Half Man Half Biscuit

Forms of smear campaign

pluralsmear campaigns

Questions about smear campaign

What does smear campaign mean?
Smear campaign means an effort to damage or call into question someone's reputation, by propounding negative propaganda.
What part of speech is smear campaign?
Smear campaign is a noun.
What is the plural of smear campaign?
The plural of smear campaign is smear campaigns.

Words near smear campaign in the dictionary

  1. Smeafield
  2. Smeagol
  3. Smeal
  4. Smeals
  5. smear
  6. smear campaign
  7. smear campaigns
  8. smear case
  9. smear frame
  10. smear frames
  11. smear test

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: smear campaign (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-smear campaign.ogg.

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