Truther

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person who rejects mainstream explanations for significant events and promotes alternative theories, often involving claims of hidden conspiracies or cover-ups
2. Someone who advocates for unorthodox or disputed accounts of historical or current events, typically dismissing official narratives as false or misleading
3. An individual who publicly challenges accepted versions of major incidents and promotes competing explanations based on alternative evidence or reasoning

Etymology: "Truther" is a compound of "truth" and the English suffix "-er," which here marks someone who supports or advocates for something. The older sense follows the pattern of words like "believer" or "supporter": a person devoted to a cause, in this case a belief that the truth about some matter has been hidden. The suffix itself is ordinary; what makes the word interesting is that its most common meaning came from a single, specific movement. That later sense comes directly from the 9/11 Truth movement, the name adopted by people who question the official account of the September 11, 2001 attacks. From that name, "truther" came to mean a person who holds those views, and the word soon broadened to describe adherents of other conspiracy theories as well. The shift from a generic supporter of the truth to a label for a particular group of skeptics is a clear example of how a movement's own name can become a common noun.

Synonyms: conspiracy theorist