guilt by association
CulturalExample Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
There are good reasons of privacy and unfair guilt by association not to dump hundreds of thousands of pages of raw FBI investigatory files into the public arena.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 13, 2025
This allowed the researchers to group genes into common clusters that revealed the role of each gene through "guilt by association."
From Science Daily ● May 23, 2024
They can create strength in numbers, but also guilt by association, and guilt by not associating.
From Slate ● Nov. 10, 2023
It’s the guilt by association that De León is burning inside about, according to one insider, who asked not to be identified.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 20, 2022
Most people outside the System are there because they've been Suspended for supposed infractions, or they've been put out through guilt by association, or because they were born into a family already in that condition.
From Cerebrum by Birmingham, Lloyd
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
