Etymology

sealion

S1E1A1L1I1O1N1

Today it means: To intrude on a conversation with probing questions in an attempt to engage in unwanted debate, usually disingenuously as a form of harassment or trolling. Full definition →

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The story

The verb is from “The Terrible Sea Lion”, a 2014 strip in the webcomic Wondermark, in which a character expresses a dislike of sea lions and a passing sea lion repeatedly, intrusively asks the character to justify this.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.