Word.ws English Dictionary

whatabouteries

whatabouteries is the plural of whataboutery.

Meaning of whataboutery

Noun

whataboutery (countable and uncountable, plural whatabouteries)

  1. (derogatory, informal) Protesting at hypocrisy; responding to criticism by accusing one's opponent of similar or worse faults.
    • Criticism is stereotyped as 'civil servant bashing' or the weapon of whataboutery is unsheathed: official statements accelerate about inefficient private sector management.1983, Foras Forbartha, Towards a national strategy: issues and perspectives
  2. (derogatory, informal) Protesting at inconsistency; refusing to act in one instance unless similar action is taken in other similar instances.
    • They are skilled in whataboutery: the art of avoiding the issue.1984, Andrew Kakabadse, Suresh Mukhi, The Future of management education, Nichols, →ISBN, page 9

Questions about whatabouteries

What is whatabouteries the plural of?
Whatabouteries is the plural of whataboutery.

Words near whatabouteries in the dictionary

  1. what-you-call-it
  2. what-you-call-its
  3. what-you-may-call-it
  4. what-you-may-call-its
  5. what-you-see-is-what-you-get
  6. whatabouteries
  7. whataboutery
  8. whataboutism
  9. whataboutisms
  10. whataboutist
  11. whataboutists

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: whatabouteries (page history and authors); whataboutery (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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