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Virtue & Paradox

Philosophy you can do, not just read.

Glossary

Quote Laundering

An existing term, used on this site.

Updated

Quote laundering is the process by which a fake or misattributed quotation gains credibility as it passes along a chain of reposts. Virtue & Paradox did not coin the phrase. It is an existing term, and the site adopts it as found.

Where the term comes from

As of October 17, 2026, the earliest dated uses of the phrase found for this page are two entries on Urban Dictionary, a site where users submit their own definitions. An entry for "quote laundering" dated September 4, 2013, describes "a counterfeit quotation or news item" that is picked up by several news sources, which "cite one another but never lead back to a verifiable source."

An earlier entry, for "quote-laundering" with a hyphen, is dated December 1, 2011. It uses the phrase in a related sense: citing a source in a footnote or endnote that, once followed up, turns out to be "irrelevant, spurious or entirely fictitious."

Both entries are user submissions, and the dates are the ones Urban Dictionary displays. They show the phrase in public use by those dates. They are not evidence that nobody used it earlier.

How this site uses the term

Virtue & Paradox calls a case quote laundering only when the chain of reposts can be documented with specific, dated appearances: a book with its edition, a dated article, a dated post. Each step in the chain is listed with its date. A step that cannot be dated is left out rather than guessed.

Where no such chain can be documented, the entry gives the quotation its verdict and its search scope and leaves the term out. A line is not called laundered just because it circulates widely and cannot be found in the listed editions.

Laundering describes how a line spread; it is not a verdict. A laundered line still receives one of the five verdicts, and only documentary evidence can make it misattributed or fabricated.

Sources