debunk
/diːˈbʌŋk
/verb [with object]
1Expose the falseness or hollowness of (an idea or belief): she debunks all the usual rubbish about acting...
- More importantly, it debunks the idea that educational reform is instituted to enhance the skills of the labour force.
- A very ordinary rural chap (the Mirror piece certainly debunking the idea that he is a reclusive loner), he has understandably won mass public sympathy for the way he was mistreated.
- You may have heard of professor Richard Wiseman - a British psychologist famous for debunking irrational ideas.
Synonyms
explode, deflate, puncture, quash, knock the bottom out of, drive a coach and horses through, expose, show in its true light, discredit, disprove, contradict, controvert, confute, invalidate, negate, give the lie to, prove to be false, challenge, call into question
informal shoot full of holes, shoot down in flames, blow sky-high
1.1Reduce the inflated reputation of (someone): comedy takes delight in debunking heroes...
- It is not their inclination to debunk combat heroes…
- It's just not worth debunking someone who has no credibility in the first place.
- Dr Marshall places Knox in his context and cuts him down to size without debunking him or letting him be effaced by the tumult of his times.
Derivatives
debunker
/ noun ...- Here, Lévy offers a genuinely interesting take on the issue, siding, at least partially, with the debunkers of the ‘obesity-as-disease’ myth.
- Even the great Enlightenment debunkers - Nietzsche, Wittgenstein and Heidegger - are criticised by Gray for believing in human exceptionalism and for being too optimistic about man's fate.
- Sommers is a peerless debunker of feminist myths.
debunkery
- In Newsweek today there's another nice piece of debunkery by Hosenball and Isikoff.
- For one thing, Beckett treated such portentous interpretations of his work with typical Irish debunkery.
- I suppose I should warn you that this is not the opinion of a planetary scientist and that if I introduce any more healthy skepticism I risk being accused of outright debunkery!