Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Intensive, forcible indoctrination, usually political or religious, aimed at destroying a person's basic convictions and attitudes and replacing them with an alternative set of fixed beliefs.
- noun The application of a concentrated means of persuasion, such as an advertising campaign or repeated suggestion, in order to develop a specific belief or motivation.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun the process of forcible indoctrination into a new set of attitudes and beliefs.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Alternative spelling of
brain-washing .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun forcible indoctrination into a new set of attitudes and beliefs
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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He agreed the term brainwashing can be used in two different senses, involving an element of physical force and no such physical element.
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British journalist Edward Hunter translated the term brainwashing in his 1953 book, “Brain-Washing in Red China,” which described communist techniques for controlling the minds of nonbelievers.
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* Some one somewhere took the term brainwashing literally.
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Melvin Bledsoe described what he called the brainwashing' of his son, saying Carlos was a happy teenager who changed after he went to college and converted.
Emotions Run High at Hearing Devlin Barrett 2011
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He spent his time in prison trying to undo the years of what he calls the brainwashing he received as a young man in Suweidi.
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But even though we've been inundated with all these waves of social engineering-that's what they call brainwashing nowadays-I'm nevertheless optimistic that, if we succeed in building up a force in Germany that reminds people about Germany's culture in science and art, that the German people is nevertheless a people with enormous potential.
LaRouche's Latest EIR News Service Inc. 2010
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Talk of "brainwashing" is everywhere -- this cleansing action allegedly to take place in a mere twenty minutes or so, unlike the lengthy, far less efficient efforts of the Chinese during the Korean War.
Archive 2009-09-01 2009
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I'd pay a subscription fee if I could have what you are talking about - and maybe a little less brainwashing from the advertisers ......
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I'd pay a subscription fee if I could have what you are talking about - and maybe a little less brainwashing from the advertisers ......
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This just sounds like brainwashing from a faith based therapist.
Jenny Sanford on her husband: 'The ball is in his court' 2009
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