Word.ws English Dictionary

wokewashing

wokewashing noun: the use of social justice in marketing campaigns. Also the present participle and gerund of wokewash.

Noun

wokewashing (uncountable)

  1. (derogatory) The use of social justice in marketing campaigns.
    • Which means modern brands have started using progressive values as a marketing ploy and are appropriating social activism as a form of advertising. It’s like the “greenwashing” of yore, but on a whole other level. We have, I’m afraid, entered a nauseating new age of woke-washing.2018 August 10, Arwa Mahdawi, “Woke-washing brands cash in on social justice. It’s lazy and hypocritical”, in The Guardian

Also used as

wokewashing is also the present participle and gerund of wokewash.

Forms of wokewashing

alternative formwoke-washing

Origin of wokewashing

From woke + -wash + -ing. Compare greenwashing.

Questions about wokewashing

What does wokewashing mean?
Wokewashing means the use of social justice in marketing campaigns.
What part of speech is wokewashing?
Wokewashing is a noun.

Words near wokewashing in the dictionary

  1. woketurd
  2. woketurds
  3. wokewash
  4. wokewashed
  5. wokewashes
  6. wokewashing
  7. Wokey Hole
  8. Wokha
  9. wokie
  10. wokies
  11. wokification

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wokewashing (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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Cite this entry: “wokewashing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wokewashing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.