FOIA

F4O1I1A1
/ˈfɔɪjə/

verb

To request or obtain records using the Freedom of Information Act.

Less commonScrabble 7

Meanings

proper noun
  1. USabbreviationacronymgovernmentAcronym of Freedom of Information Act.

    Not all heroes wear capes, but most of them file FOIA requests.

    2026 July 12, u/Vegetable-Phone-1743, r/law (Reddit post), archived from the original on 14 Jul 2026
    2 more examples

    FOIA is what enables regular people to pester powerful federal agencies into handing over information about what they’ve been up to. FOIA’s website calls it “the law that keeps citizens in the know about their government.”

    2017 July 23, Michelle Cottle, “The War on the Freedom of Information Act”, in The Atlantic

    The watchdog group behind the FOIA litigation has taken up Cooper’s invitation for discovery, seeking depositions of Gleason and of Steve Davis, a longtime Musk adviser now involved with DOGE, as well as other internal information about its work.

    2025 March 30, Tierney Sneed, “Is DOGE actually an agency? The answer could have major ramifications”, in CNN
verbFOIA (third-person singular simple present FOIAs, present participle FOIAing, simple past and past participle FOIAed)

present singular third person FOIAs · participle present FOIAing · participle past FOIAed · past FOIAed

  1. transitivelawTo request or obtain records using the Freedom of Information Act.

Synonyms & antonyms

Also see

Origin

First use appears c. 1968, in the publication Administrative Law Review.

Full word history & related roots →

Rhymes & wordplay

Rhymes with FOIA

All rhymes →
Cite this entry
APA

FOIA. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/FOIA

MLA

“FOIA.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/FOIA. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “FOIA,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/FOIA.

Source: FOIA on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.