Orwellian
Part of speech: adj
Morphological type: derivation
Etymology: Etymology tree
English Orwell
Proto-Indo-European *-nós
Proto-Italic *-nos
Latin -nus
Latin -ānus
Latin -iānusbor.
English -ian
English Orwellian
From Orwell + -ian.
Inflected forms:
form: more Orwellian
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: most Orwellian
pos: adj
tags: superlative
Senses:
gloss: Resembling the totalitarian political methods decried in the works of writer George Orwell, particularly in the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four; characterized by use of misleading terminology, propaganda, censorship, surveillance and repression.
pos: adj
examples: “But they soon find out that an enforced equality, without free individualism to temper it, becomes an Orwellian nightmare-version of the workers' paradise, in which ‘all are equal, but some are more equal than others.’”
“The Orwellian slogan that ‘War is Peace’ was, consciously or unconsciously, from the beginning adopted by both conflicting groups within the U.N.”
Largely invisible much of the year, China’s non-Communist parties are thrust to the fore each March for a display of what the official news media calls China’s system of “multiparty cooperation and political consultation.”
The news conference, held in a gilded meeting room in the Great Hall of the People, is an Orwellian affair, with party leaders referring to the wonders of “democratic centralization,” heaping praise on the Communist Party and then answering fawning questions from the state media.
In this metropolis that had a prewar population of almost a million, but where the city center now feels like an Orwellian ghost town of propaganda posters and armed patrols, perhaps no one feels more alone than those who still harbor pro-Ukrainian sentiments.
Just as the Bush administration and the U.S. media re-labelled ‘torture’ with the Orwellian euphemism ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ to make it more palatable, the governments and media of the Five Eyes surveillance alliance are now attempting to re-brand ‘mass surveillance’ as ‘bulk collection’ in order to make it less menacing (and less illegal)... just as it was stunning to watch media outlets refuse to use the term ‘torture’ because the U.S. Government demanded that it be called something else – this Orwellian switch in surveillance language is now predictably (and mindlessly) being adopted by those nations’ most state-loyal media outlets.
To spend several days watching news broadcasts on the main state channels, as well as surveying state-controlled newspapers, is to witness the extent of the Kremlin’s efforts to sanitize its war with the Orwellian term “special military operation” — and to make all news coverage align with that message.
gloss: Resembling, or having to do with, George Orwell, and especially his novel 1984.
pos: adj
Synonyms: 1984-esque
1984-ish
Orwellesque
Related words: Big Brother
Dickensian
doublethink
dystopian
Kafkaesque
Newspeak
totalitarian
Derived words: Orwellianism
Orwellianly
Translations:
lang: Arabic
word: أَرْوَلِيٌّ
lang: Catalan
word: orwel·lià
lang: Czech
word: orwellovský
lang: Danish
word: orwellsk
lang: Dutch
word: Orwelliaans
lang: Dutch
word: orwelliaans
lang: Finnish
word: orwellilainen
lang: French
word: orwellien
lang: Greek
word: οργουελικός
roman: orgouelikós
lang: Italian
word: orwelliano
lang: Norwegian Bokmål
word: orwellsk
lang: Norwegian Nynorsk
word: orwellsk
lang: Occitan
word: orwellian
lang: Persian
word: اورولی
lang: Polish
word: orwellowski
lang: Portuguese
word: orwelliano
lang: Russian
word: оруэлловский
roman: oruellovskij
lang: Russian
word: о́руэлльский
roman: óruellʹskij
lang: Spanish
word: orwelliano
lang: Swedish
word: orwellsk
lang: Turkish
word: Orwellyen