ethnic cleansing

noun

: the expulsion, imprisonment, or killing of an ethnic minority by a dominant majority in order to achieve ethnic homogeneity

Examples of ethnic cleansing in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

But there’s a sense that there is a deliberate ethnic cleansing of the Shia populations in the south. —Isaac Chotiner, New Yorker, 9 Apr. 2026

Israel’s plans for a buffer zone have prompted fears of a longer displacement that would essentially amount to an ethnic cleansing of Lebanon’s south. —Nabih Bulos, Los Angeles Times, 7 Apr. 2026

To be blunt, the work of ICE is the work of ethnic cleansing. —Sarah Jeong, The Verge, 1 Mar. 2026

During the war, Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic ordered the ethnic cleansing of the majority Albanians in Kosovo, burning villages and forcing some 700,000 Kosovo Albanians to seek refuge in neighboring Albania, which touched off NATO intervention. —Peter Lucas, Boston Herald, 28 Feb. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1991, in the meaning defined above