indoctrination

American  

[in-dok-truh-ney-shuhn] / ɪnˌdɒk trəˈneɪ ʃən /

noun

1. the act of indoctrinating, or teaching or inculcating a doctrine, principle, or ideology, especially one with a specific point of view.

   religious indoctrination.

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Other Word Forms

• reindoctrination
  noun

Etymology

Origin of indoctrination

indoctrin(ate) + -ation

Explanation

Indoctrination means teaching someone to accept a set of beliefs without questioning them. Your sister's orientation at her new job might seem more like indoctrination if she comes home robotically reciting her corporate employee handbook. Indoctrination often refers to religious ideas, when you're talking about a religious environment that doesn't let you question or criticize those beliefs. The Latin word for "teach," doctrina is the root of indoctrinate, and originally that's just what it meant. By the 1830s it came to mean the act of forcing ideas and opinions on someone who isn't allowed to question them.

Example Sentences

It’s a piece of working Party doctrine—Xi unveiled it in 2017 and made it the centerpiece of an indoctrination campaign every cadre had to recite.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 19, 2026

But the judges ruled RE was not taught in "an objective, critical, and pluralistic manner," and that could amount to "indoctrination".

From BBC • Jan. 28, 2026

For Shipka, it was her true indoctrination into this wild world.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 25, 2026

Everyone has to agree, it's really been drummed into us — and I went to business school, I've been through this indoctrination process — that everyone works for the shareholder.

From Salon • Apr. 26, 2025

Science replicates itself by indoctrination, since scientific communities work most efficiently when they are agreed about what they are trying to do.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

Related Words

• persuasion