Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

human-flesh search

Word Rarity Uncommon

Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.10 in modern English

Syllables: hu-man-flesh search
IPA

32

Scrabble Score

16

Letters

3

Syllables

11

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

Research at an Internet forum where questions may be posed for other people to answer.

noun

Vigilante justice where Internet users collaborate to find people and punish them by public exposure, harassment, or intimidation.

Example Sentences

"3 March 2010, The New York Times, China's Cyberposse Mop had a forum called human-flesh search engine, where users could pose questions about entertainment trivia that other users would answer: a type of crowd-sourcing."
"3 March 2010, The New York Times, China's Cyberposse Human-flesh search engines — renrou sousuo yinqing — have become a Chinese phenomenon: they are a form of online vigilante justice in which Internet users hunt down and punish people who have attracted their wrath."

Etymology

Possibly a back-formation from human flesh search engine.

Inflected Forms

human-flesh searches (plural)

Questions

What does human-flesh search mean?: Research at an Internet forum where questions may be posed for other people to answer.
Where does human-flesh search come from?: Possibly a back-formation from human flesh search engine.

How to pronounce human-flesh search

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