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whataboutism.

A logical fallacy where criticisms are deflected by raising unrelated criticisms of the opposite side.

12 characters4 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˌwə.təˈbaʊ.tɪ.zəm/
  1. A logical fallacy where criticisms are deflected by raising unrelated criticisms of the opposite side.

    countable · rhetoric · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From what about + -ism. First use appears c. 1978 in The Guardian.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.