Debunk

//dɪˈbʌŋk// noun, verb, slang

noun, verb, slang ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A debunking; the act by which something is debunked. informal
Verb
  1. 1
    To discredit, or expose to ridicule the falsehood or the exaggerated claims of something. transitive

    "The explosion story was thoroughly debunked on National Public Radio in November 1999."

  2. 2
    expose while ridiculing; especially of pretentious or false claims and ideas wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
awakenbreak the spellburst the bubbleconvincecorrectdisabuse

Example

More examples

"Although scientists and skeptics have many times managed to debunk conspiracy theories, believers nevertheless maintain an unreasoning attachment to the discredited ideas."

Etymology

From de- (“away”) + bunk (“nonsense”) (from bunkum, from Buncombe County) 1923.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.