Phrase guide

Streisand effect

noun · 1 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

  • US: /ˈstɹaɪ.sænd əˌfɛkt/
  • Australia: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.

1

noun

Meaning 1

A phenomenon in which attempting to suppress an item of information attracts even more unwanted attention, thus furthering its dissemination.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

Coined by Mike Masnick in 2005, after a 2003 incident in which singer Barbra Streisand attempted to have a picture of her house removed from a public collection of 12,000 images documenting coastal erosion in California.

Across languages

Translations

10 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Chinese Mandarin: 史翠珊效應 /史翠珊效应 (Shǐcuìshān xiàoyìng) — phenomenon
  • Finnish: Streisand-ilmiö — phenomenon
  • French: effet Streisand — phenomenon
  • German: Streisand-Effekt — phenomenon
  • Italian: effetto Streisand — phenomenon
  • Japanese: ストライサンド効果 (Sutoraisando kōka) — phenomenon
  • Polish: Efekt Streisand — phenomenon
  • Portuguese: efeito Streisand — phenomenon
  • Russian: эффе́кт Стре́йзанд (effékt Strɛ́jzand) — phenomenon
  • Turkish: Streisand etkisi — phenomenon