Salem witch trials

1. Trials held in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692 that led to the execution of twenty people for allegedly practicing witchcraft. The trials are noted for the hysterical atmosphere in which they were conducted; many townspeople were widely suspected of witchcraft on flimsy evidence.

When people are quick to accuse one another of serious misdeeds on inadequate evidence, the situation is often compared to the Salem witch trials.

A “witch hunt” is a political campaign launched under the pretext of investigating activities considered subversive by the state.

Example Sentences

Just as America’s penchant for religious mania and moral panic goes clear back to the Puritan settlers and the small-town schism of the Salem witch trials, the punitive, paranoid spirit behind Alligator Alcatraz — the desire to divide those who “belong” to the imagined national community from those who do not — has deep roots in this nation’s history.

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Forty years after William Pynchon’s books were burned in Boston, the nearby Salem witch trials exploded, with the state murdering 14 women and five men and tormenting nearly 200 others for demonic sorcery.

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“It was like the Salem witch trials,” he said, adding that the hearings were a distraction from the devastation in Gaza.

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In I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem, Condé told the story of a slave who was one of the first women to be accused of witchcraft during the 1692 Salem witch trials.

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The witch trials that are perhaps best known are the infamous Salem witch trials that took place in Massachusetts, USA, between February 1692 and May 1693.

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