Muckrake
noun, verb ·2 syllables ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A rake for scraping up dung.
- 1 To search for and expose corruption or scandal, especially as a form of investigative journalism. intransitive
"To think that he cares about nothing save the possibility of being found out and made ridiculous! All his friends have been ‘muckraked,’ as he calls it, and he has sat aloft and smiled over their plight; he was the landed gentleman, the true aristrocrat, whom the worries of traders and money-changers didn’t concern."
- 2 explore and expose misconduct and scandals concerning public figures wordnet
Example
More examples"To think that he cares about nothing save the possibility of being found out and made ridiculous! All his friends have been ‘muckraked,’ as he calls it, and he has sat aloft and smiled over their plight; he was the landed gentleman, the true aristrocrat, whom the worries of traders and money-changers didn’t concern."
Etymology
From muck + rake.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.