Exhibit A

Ex·hib·it A
UK/ɪɡˈzɪbɪt ˌeɪ̯/UK/ɛɡ-/US/iɡˈzibət ˌeɪ̯/

noun

The foremost example, often with a negative connotation.

“The legislature can’t fight corruption when the politicians are Exhibit A.”

Meanings

nounExhibit A (uncountable)
  1. figurativelyuncountableThe foremost example, often with a negative connotation.

    The legislature can’t fight corruption when the politicians are Exhibit A.

    4 more examples

    Exhibit A—I had a boyfriend once. I was fifteen. He was fifteen. He had green eyes and floppy hair and liked Vampire Weekend, and if that doesn't guarantee a life of shared bliss, I don't know what does.

    2016, Stefan Bachmann, A Drop of Night, New York, N.Y.: Greenwillow Books, →ISBN

    From 1924 onwards my little collection of evidence contained a mixture of literary references. Exhibit A was Evelyn Waugh in Vile Bodies (published in 1930): […]

    2016, John Simpson, “Marshallers of Words”, in The Word Detective: A Life in Words: From Shenanigan to Selfie, London: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN; republished as The Word Detective: Searching or the Meaning of It All at the Oxford English Dictionary: A Memoir, New York, N.Y.: Basic Books, 2016, →ISBN, page 51

    Characters commenting on their own predicament as though they were the armchair jokesters of MST3K is almost never as smart as a film’s creative team thinks it is—something for which Urban Legend serves as Exhibit A.

    2017 October 27, Alex McLevy, “Making a Killing: The Brief Life and Bloody Death of the Post-Scream Slasher Revival”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 05 Mar 2018

    When countries break those pledges, they create a world of insecurity for everyone. Exhibit A: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    2023 September 19, Léonie Chao-Fong, quoting António Guterres, “Biden addresses UN and will warn of Russian ‘brutalizing’ Ukraine without consequence; UN chief says ‘world becoming unhinged’”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

Synonyms & antonyms

Origin

From the conventional way of labelling the first piece of physical evidence used in a criminal trial.

Full word history & related roots →

Translations

Italian caso più eclatante
  • caso più eclatantethe foremost example
Cite this entry
APA

Exhibit A. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Exhibit%20A

MLA

“Exhibit A.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Exhibit%20A. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Exhibit A,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Exhibit%20A.

Source: Exhibit A on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.