Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of, relating to, or evocative of the works of George Orwell, especially the satirical novel 1984, which depicts a futuristic totalitarian state.
Wiktionary
- adj. Resembling the totalitarian political methods decried in the works of British democratic socialist and writer George Orwell, particularly in the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four; characterized by use of misleading terminology, propaganda, censorship, totalitarianism, surveillance and repression.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. of or relating to the works of George Orwell (especially his picture of a future totalitarian state)
Etymologies
- Orwell + -ian (Wiktionary)
Examples
“My answer to them is "have you ever used the term Orwellian to describe what's happening in America today?”
“Orwellian is a word too easily, and usually wrongly, tossed about, but, really, here we are entering the Land of War-Is-Peace.”
“One might reach for the term Orwellian to describe such events, perhaps because there is no fitting way to convey the "up is down, black is white" sense of what has happened in Iraq and what is happening there now.”
“Another minor point here is the lazy use of the term Orwellian in Anthony's piece, to describe the revolutionary fraternity associated with the term 'Brother.”
“Althouse criticizes what she calls the Orwellian use of “conversation” in current national debates:”
“The word Orwellian is still used to describe the language and actions of politicians who say one thing but carry out other, usually contradictory deeds.”
“To call this Labour government "Orwellian" is an understatement.”
“The word "Orwellian" is a daunting example of the fate that a distinguished writer can suffer at the hands of journalists.”
“But you can't call it "Orwellian," because that means Big Brother, Newspeak, the Gestapo, the K.G.B., the Stasi, and any other totalitarian obscenity that has ever reared its head or ever will.”
“The adjective "Orwellian" is often used to describe any real world scenario reminiscent of the novel.”
Background information for George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘Orwellian’.
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Artfully Eponymous Adjectives
Adjectives, such as quixotic, whose root is the name of an artist, poet, writer, or literary character.
For additional eponyms see the lists Namesakes and Lend Me Your Name. I've liste...Thoreauvian, Gradgrindian, Blytonesque, Rabelaisian, Emersonian, Byronic, Dickensian, Lovecraftian, Miltonian, Byronian, Byronesque, Flaubertian and 228 more...
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EN-HU - important words for a HU inte...
Words only (I left out the expressions) from Geza Kerenyi's EN-HU interpreters' dictionary. Most of them pose some difficulty when interpreted between HU and EN in either or both directions.
abalone, abrasive, abstractionist, abstruse, abysmal, academia, accessibility, accessible, acclimate, accolade, accompanist, achiever and 1469 more...
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of Montreal
Every time I finally decipher Kevin Barnes's song lyrics, I feel somewhat smarter.
These are strange/big/obscure words and phrases from the lyrics of the band 'of Montreal' (intentiona...southern hemisphe..., paradigm, Phaidon Press, permutation, List Christie, Gemini Tactics, eluardian, persecution complex, Himmlers, parabola, Mono Club, subconscious mass... and 132 more...
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Dystopian Eponyms
Places where you wouldn't want to live.
Kafkaesque, Orwellian, Dickensian, Huxleyan, Hobbesian, Darwinian, Lovecraftian, Nietzschean, Hardyesque, Kubrickian, Reaganesque, Machiavellian and 1 more...
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Namesakes
Words derived from names, be they historical, literary, or mythological.
quixotic, cereal, odyssey, jovial, mercurial, erotic, achilles' heel, confucianism, lovecraftian, narcissism, echo, fallopian and 101 more...
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today's word
copemate, quiddity, ere, maugre, argal, cultivar, exurb, spokesmodel, rollick, logy, cadastral, corpulent and 259 more...
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You know like ____'s work.
Felliniesque, Kafkaesque, Nietzschean, Pynchonesque, Pynchonian, Wellesian, Spoonerism, Thatcherite, Jeffersonian, Jacksonian, Wilsonian, Praxitelean and 15 more...
Tweets
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