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Synonyms

newspeak

American  
[noo-speek, nyoo-] / ˈnuˌspik, ˈnyu- /

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.”

newspeak British  
/ ˈnjuːˌspiːk /

noun

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

"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 newspeak

new + speak, coined by George Orwell in his novel 1984 (1949)

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.

As John Wilson pointed out in the 1990s, “PC” was a discourse that inspired readers—and above all, thousands of would-be stand-up comics—to come up with their own “PC” newspeak.

From Slate • Jan. 5, 2025

“Food processor” sounds like newspeak concocted by a sinister culinary regime to reassure the international community.

From Washington Post • Feb. 8, 2022

It gripped him long before he came up with Big Brother, Oceania, newspeak or the telescreen, and it’s more important than any of them.

From The Guardian • May 19, 2019

From Orwell’s evocation of the totalitarian superstate of Oceania, new words entered the language: doublethink, thoughtcrime, newspeak and Big Brother.

From Seattle Times • Jan. 3, 2019

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

From After the Rain : how the West lost the East by Vaknin, Samuel

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.