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Great Firewall

British  

noun

  1. informal a system that prevents access to websites deemed undesirable by the government of the People's Republic of China

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of Great Firewall

C21: a play on the Great Wall of China

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

They reflect the country’s longstanding efforts to control public discourse, including setting up the Great Firewall in the early 2000s.

From The Wall Street Journal Dec. 24, 2025

Resourceful activists have been finding new ways to get around this but even those few cracks in the Great Firewall - like AirDrop - are now slowly being plugged.

From BBC Jun. 8, 2023

“If more videos or information jumps across the Great Firewall of China, then obviously it’s outside the control of China’s online censorship machine.”

From Washington Post Dec. 2, 2022

A number of accounts on Twitter have collected videos of the unrest from those behind China’s Great Firewall and posted them.

From New York Times Nov. 30, 2022

Though both are banned in China, Wang hopes his reports will trickle over China’s Great Firewall and into the country.

From Seattle Times Oct. 19, 2022

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