Nifong

N1I1F4O1N1G2

proper noun

A rare surname from German.

Scrabble 10

Meanings

Nifong1

proper noun
  1. A rare surname from German.

Nifong2

verbNifong (third-person singular simple present Nifongs, present participle Nifonging, simple past and past participle Nifonged)

present singular third person Nifongs · participle present Nifonging · participle past Nifonged · past Nifonged

  1. To make a self-serving, politically-motivated accusation or prosecution.

    Don't get "Nifonged" again!

    2008, Campaign poster, Friends for Freda Black, April 2008, http://bp0.blogger.com/_8fUCfAeoLXo/SBaOeDJgEoI/AAAAAAAAA1w/8FJrGWvGHos/s1600-h/Cline+Nifonged.jpg
    4 more examples

    I should have expected Nifonging by liberal rags such as the Herald-Sun. I would have expected better from the Times.

    2007 July 28, Dave Highlands, “WE MUST NOT TOLERATE THIS CRUELTY TO ANIMALS”, in St. Petersburg Times

    We're not going away. We're going to seek justice. What happened to her, she was Nifonged. They just rushed to judgment without any notice of who her accusers were, what the accusations were. They fired her in a couple of days.

    2007, Henry Jones, "Teacher Cleared of Having Sex with Students Sues School District," Hannity & Colmes, FOX News Network, August 27, 2007

    Imagine for a moment that a similar incident had taken place at a local university and that a prosecutor here had Nifonged.

    2007 September 27, Ted Van Dyk, “NIFONG EXAMPLE RAISES GOOD QUESTIONS.”, in Seattle Post-Intelligencer

    “He never had any intention of finishing off his revenge on Tom DeLay and is scared to death of being Nifonged while still in office,” Ms. Flaherty said, a reference to Michael B. Nifong, the disgraced former prosecutor in the Duke University lacrosse team rape case that collapsed as groundless.

    2007 December 15, Ralph Blumenthal, “Prosecutor in DeLay Case Says He Won’t Seek Re-election Next Year”, in The New York Times

Origin

Nifong · proper noun

  1. GermanNeufang
  2. EnglishNifong

From German Neufang.

Full word history & related roots →

Nifong · verb

* From Mike Nifong, a North Carolina District Attorney who made headlines for a controversial prosecution and his subsequent disbarment while in office for ethics violations.

Full word history & related roots →

Rhymes & wordplay

Anagrams

Cite this entry
APA

Nifong. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Nifong

MLA

“Nifong.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Nifong. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Nifong,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Nifong.

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