Meanings
- derogatoryuncountableA tendency to protect people from perceived injury (such as criticism) by responding with hostility to whoever is held responsible for causing said injury.
“Vindictive protectiveness,” they write, “prepares [students] poorly for professional life, which often demands intellectual engagement with people and ideas one might find uncongenial or wrong. […]
2017, Erwin Chemerinsky, Howard Gillman, Free Speech on Campus2 more examples
Ready for another term? Try vindictive protectiveness. In essence, in the name of emotional wellbeing, students can eliminate anything they do not want to think about, read about, or be challenged about. And penalize those who would expose them to it. How? In the name of "offense".
2017, James Emery White, Meet Generation ZAnd more than the last, this movement seeks to punish anyone who interferes with that aim, even accidentally. You might call this impulse vindictive protectiveness. It is creating a culture in which everyone must think twice before speaking up, […]
2017?, Joel Best, American Nightmares: Social Problems in an Anxious World (page 151)
Origin
Coined by researchers Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
vindictive protectiveness. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/vindictive%20protectiveness
“vindictive protectiveness.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/vindictive%20protectiveness. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “vindictive protectiveness,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/vindictive%20protectiveness.
Source: vindictive protectiveness on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.