Sharpiegate
name, slang ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A 2002 controversy where Terry Owens signed a football with a Sharpie hidden in his sock. informal
"THERE WILL be no Sharpiegate to distract the 49ers this week. Terrell Owens' latest hand grenade was not only defused, it turned out not to be explosive at all."
- 2 A 2019 controversy around US president Donald Trump presenting a modified weather map indicating that Alabama would be hit by Hurricane Dorian, in opposition to official forecasts. informal
"The US secretary of commerce, Wilbur Ross, is facing calls for his resignation after it was reported that he had threatened to fire senior staff at a federal agency unless they sided publicly with Donald Trump in the rumbling dispute dubbed “Sharpiegate”."
- 3 A conspiracy theory claiming that ballots marked with Sharpie pens were unfairly disqualified in the 2020 US presidential election. informal
Example
More examples"THERE WILL be no Sharpiegate to distract the 49ers this week. Terrell Owens' latest hand grenade was not only defused, it turned out not to be explosive at all."
Etymology
From Sharpie + -gate, after the brand of pen.
More for "sharpiegate"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.