dunk on

verb

dunked on; dunking on; dunks on

: to make a dunk shot over (an opposing player)

[San Antonio] Spurs great Manu Ginobili … stars in a new social media video sharing the game thoughts that ran through his head as he dunked on Yao Ming, one of the NBA's tallest players ever.—

Madalyn Mendoza

[Malcolm] Brogdon showed the Bucks right away that they got the steal of the draft, as he had an impressive rookie season, even dunking on LeBron James and Kyrie Irving in one game.—

Matt Newton

slang : to publicly make fun of (someone or something) especially on social media

Justin Bieber decided he was up for a fresh new hairstyle (or just got sick of people dunking on him) and ditched the dreadlocks.—

Samantha Wilson

… getting dunked on on social media isn't the same as getting canceled (whatever that means). It's more like dropping your tray of food in the lunchroom in middle school and everyone points and laughs at you …—

Jason Aten

[Alex] Walker, a Democrat, is hoping that any attention he draws, whether people celebrate his message or dunk on him, will help transform him into an Internet phenomenon and defeat a Republican firebrand.—

Taylor Lorenz and David Weigel

An inflammatory tweet would be retweeted by supporters, dunked on by critics, and amplified by journalists, before making its way to website homepages, cable news … and newspaper front pages.—

David A. Graham

Examples of dunk on in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web The Wolves went to a full-court press which led to steals and dunks on the other end. —

Nathan Canilao, The Mercury News, 1 Feb. 2024 By the time James rose up and dunked on Paul George, and D’Angelo Russell, fresh back from an injury, was splashing home transition threes, the gap between the two teams faded. —

Dan Woike, Los Angeles Times, 8 Jan. 2024 In the fourth quarter, when Westbrook’s open-court dunk with seven minutes remaining and center Daniel Theis’ dunk on the very next possession brought the Clippers to within seven points, Brooklyn answered with baskets each time. —

Andrew Greif, Los Angeles Times, 21 Jan. 2024 The rapper has taken to Twitter and TikTok to drum up excitement for his new music (and dunk on Dave Chapelle), which we’re set to finally get our first taste of on January 12. —

Vulture, 7 Jan. 2024 First, with the Spurs playing a zone, Antetokounmpo spun through the defense and put down a thunderous dunk on several Spurs. —

Jim Owczarski, Journal Sentinel, 4 Jan. 2024 That ended after he was dunked on by a future N.B.A. player in a high school game. —

Jason Zinoman, New York Times, 20 Dec. 2023 Trust me: If a Democrat did something like this, Republicans would be dunking on him from here to kingdom come. —

Jay Nordlinger, National Review, 14 Dec. 2023 Pointing this out is in no way a dunk on NotebookLM. —

Steven Levy, WIRED, 8 Dec. 2023 See More

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'dunk on.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.