witch hunt

Noun

witch-hunt (plural witch-hunts)

1. (historical) A search for people believed to be using sorcery or harmful magic, typically in order to persecute or punish them.
   • To-night ye will see. It is the great witch-hunt, and many will be smelt out as wizards and slain.1885, H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon's Mines
2. (broadly, figuratively) An attempt to find and punish or harass a group of people perceived as a threat, usually on ideological or political grounds.
   • Rank-and-file Communists everywhere are led away on a senseless witch-hunt after 'Trotskyists'.1938 April, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Homage to Catalonia, London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC
3. (broadly, figuratively) A public or political campaign or investigation which smears a person or group.
   • Even fewer people could believe that the UNCW administration would actually undertake a witch hunt against me, even going so far as to invoke their right to read my personal e-mails because they were on the university's system.2008, Mike Adams, Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts "Womyn" on Campus, Penguin, →ISBN

See all 4 meanings of witch-hunt