Gang of Four

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noun

a group of four radical members of the Chinese Communist Party who were leaders of the Cultural Revolution and who were purged and imprisoned after the death of Mao Zedong: Jiang Qing (widow of Mao), Wang Hongwen, Yao Wenyuan, and Zhang Chunqiao.

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treating others with kindness

acting selfishly

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Compare Cultural Revolution, Red Guard.

Origin of Gang of Four

Translation of Chinese sìrén bāng

Words nearby Gang of Four

ganglioplegic, ganglioside, gangliosidosis, gangly, Gangnail, Gang of Four, gangplank, gang plough, gang plow, gangpunch, gang rape

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2022

How to use Gang of Four in a sentence

If the aforementioned details seem vaguely familiar to our current predicament — some 40 years later and an ocean away — it also speaks to why the seismic force that is Gang of Four’s music remains vital decades later.
Gang of Four changed the way punk sounded and what it could say. A new box set reveals the peak of their power.|Andy Beta|March 12, 2021|Washington Post
How do you feel about Archer and the gang abandoning the cartel and returning to the office?
‘Archer’ Creator Adam Reed Spills Season 6 Secrets, From Surreal Plotlines to Life Post-ISIS|Marlow Stern|January 8, 2015|DAILY BEAST
There are four photos there of representative presidential candidates.
Today’s GOP: Still Cool With Racist Pandering?|Michael Tomasky|January 7, 2015|DAILY BEAST
Four weeks after the injections, all 20 of the participants had developed the antibodies needed to stave off the infection.
The Race for the Ebola Vaccine|Abby Haglage|January 7, 2015|DAILY BEAST

Gang tattoos are still inked onto his face, like scarlet letters.
How Good Dads Can Change the World|Gary Barker, PhD, Michael Kaufman|January 6, 2015|DAILY BEAST
After four or five months of casual interaction, they realized they both had lost a young parent to cancer.
Everyone at This Dinner Party Has Lost Someone|Samantha Levine|January 6, 2015|DAILY BEAST
A little boy of four was moved to passionate grief at the sight of a dead dog taken from a pond.
Children's Ways|James Sully
In cross-section the burrows varied from round (three inches in diameter) to oval (three inches high and four inches wide).
Summer Birds From the Yucatan Peninsula|Erwin E. Klaas
Before the spinet a bench was placed about four feet below the keys, and I was put upon the bench.
Gulliver's Travels|Jonathan Swift
We had six field-pieces, but we only took four, harnessed wit twice the usual number of horses.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV.|Various
The Seven-score and four on the six middle Bells, the treble leading, and the tenor lying behind every change, makes good Musick.
Tintinnalogia, or, the Art of Ringing|Richard Duckworth and Fabian Stedman

British Dictionary definitions for Gang of Four

Gang of Four

noun

the Gang of Four a radical faction within the Chinese Communist Party that emerged as a political force in the spring of 1976 and was suppressed later that year. Its members, Zhang Chunqiao, Wang Hongwen, Yao Wenyuan, and Jiang Qing, were tried and imprisoned (1981)

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

Cultural definitions for Gang of Four

Gang of Four

Four Chinese political leaders of the twentieth century who were closely associated with Mao Zedong (one of the four was his wife). They were denounced when moderates came to power in China in 1976 and were convicted in 1981 of committing crimes, such as torture, during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.