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newspeak

[noo-speek, nyoo-]
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noun
  1. (sometimes initial capital letter) an official or semiofficial style of writing or saying one thing in the guise of its opposite, especially in order to serve a political or ideological cause while pretending to be objective, as in referring to “increased taxation” as “revenue enhancement.”
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Origin of newspeak

new + speak, coined by George Orwell in his novel, 1984 (1949)
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words

patoisvocabularyargotidiomvernacularlingoparlanceslanghypeindoctrinationpublicitydisinformationlexiconabracadabranonsensecantcolloquialismtwaddlebunkspeech

Examples from the Web for newspeak

Historical Examples

  • A topsy-turvy continent adrift among the gales of newspeak, under the gaze of a million grey bureaucrats passing for big brothers.

    After the Rain

    Sam Vaknin

British Dictionary definitions for newspeak

newspeak

noun
  1. the language of bureaucrats and politicians, regarded as deliberately ambiguous and misleading
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Word Origin

C20: from 1984, a novel by George Orwell
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

Word Origin and History for newspeak

Newspeak

n.

name of the artificial language of official communication in George Orwell's novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four," 1949, from new + speak. Frequently applied to what is perceived as propagandistic warped English.

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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper