muckrake
verb (used without object)
to search for and expose real or alleged corruption, scandal, or the like, especially in politics.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The great muckraking journalist Upton Sinclair once said it was pretty much impossible to convince somebody of something if their money depended on them not believing or understanding it.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 30, 2026
“The seasoned families will never live on apartment house terms, like larvae in a honeycomb,” wrote the muckraking journalist Will Irwin in 1927.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 23, 2026
Jim Hightower, the former Texas agriculture commissioner who later gained prominence as a muckraking progressive journalist, was the keynote speaker at the 2000 Greens convention.
From Slate ● Jul. 4, 2023
Noted 20th century critics dismissed the book, but recent scholars have revisited it as a muckraking romance.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 11, 2023
He saw himself as a muckraking gadfly and had mortgaged his brownstone five times to keep The Phoenix going.
From "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls
