red-bait
verb [with object] (often as noun red-baiting) North American informal
Harass or persecute (someone) on account of known or suspected communist sympathies: (as adjective red-baiting) the red-baiting chairman of the Senate committee...
- Though stopping short of overtly red-baiting him, the newspaper continued to refer to his earlier associations with leftist organizations.
- You may have seen a letter I emailed earlier regarding his red-baiting me in a public forum of almost 100 people.
- The newspaper published a string of editorials and comments, red-baiting the organisers, which include the middle class radical group Resistance, and demanding the government take action.
noun South African
A large sea squirt which is a popular bait with sea anglers.
- Pyura stolonifera, class Ascidiaceae.
Derivatives
red-baiter
- For them, the threat to liberal values came entirely from the right - from militarists, from red-baiters, and from the forces of economic reaction.
- For the red-baiters, American movies represented a totalitarianism creeping in from without.
- The language used in the campaign easily matches the standards set by the great Fleet Street red-baiters of the past.