0 relating to a practice in the US in the 1950s of accusing someone of being a Communist, which often led to that person losing their job or sometimes being put in prison; involving a practice similar to this in which someone is accused of being a particular thing and is avoided or not trusted because of this :
He led a McCarthyite witch hunt against homosexuals.
1 someone who takes part in McCarthyite activities or similar activities against a group of people who are not trusted because of their views:
The McCarthyite hysteria that permits the anonymous smearing of public servants is truly a disgrace.
The film caused waves at a time when the US was recovering from its McCarthyite anti-communist witch-hunts.
He was a champion of McCarthyist Communist-hunting.
There is something McCarthyite in hauling journalists before a panel asking them, in effect, "Are you now or have you ever been a racist?"
He was a stalwart McCarthyite but she was blacklisted for her left-wing views.
In the 1940s and '50s, for example, McCarthyites purged virtually all the China experts from the State Department because they were insufficiently anti-communist.
