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Ceaușescu moment

Ceaușescu moment noun: a moment when a public figure is booed in public; (by extension) a moment when a person or regime previously considered unassailable suddenly looks vulnerable; the outbreak of a revolution.

Noun

Ceaușescu moment (plural Ceaușescu moments)

  1. A moment when a public figure is booed in public; (by extension) a moment when a person or regime previously considered unassailable suddenly looks vulnerable; the outbreak of a revolution.
    • One way or another, Mugabe will go and it will be sooner rather than later. It is a question for him: does he want to go like Ian Smith and continue to live in Harare or does he want a Ceausescu moment?2003 July 15, Boris Johnson Zimbabwe Hansard Vol. 409 Part 429 col. 6WH
    • I myself became certain that Saddam had reached his fin de régime, or his Ceauşescu moment, when he celebrated his 100-percent win in the “referendum” of 2003 by releasing all the nonpolitical prisoners (the rapists and thieves and murderers who were his natural constituency) from Abu Ghraib.2005 May 9, Christopher Hitchens, “Abu Ghraib Isn’t Guernica”, in Slate

Forms of Ceaușescu moment

pluralCeaușescu moments
alternative formCeausescu moment

Origin of Ceaușescu moment

Coined by The Economist when comparing a speech by Tony Blair on 7 June 2000 with Nicolae Ceaușescu's last speech on 21 December 1989: :But when the prime minister gulped and started to skip over chunks of his text in the face of the unexpected heckles and slow hand-claps from the unthreatening, decent folk of the Women's Institute, it was uncannily reminiscent of the moment in 1989 when the obedient masses of Bucharest startled Nicolae Ceausescu by their sudden decision to boo. The dictator on his balcony raised his hands, looked puzzled, stepped backwards—and the rest is history.

Questions about Ceaușescu moment

What does Ceaușescu moment mean?
Ceaușescu moment means a moment when a public figure is booed in public; (by extension) a moment when a person or regime previously considered unassailable suddenly looks vulnerable; the outbreak of a revolution.
What part of speech is Ceaușescu moment?
Ceaușescu moment is a noun.
What is the plural of Ceaușescu moment?
The plural of Ceaușescu moment is Ceaușescu moments.

Words near Ceaușescu moment in the dictionary

  1. Ceatalchioi
  2. Ceausescu
  3. Ceausescu moment
  4. Ceausescu moments
  5. Ceaușescu
  6. Ceaușescu moment
  7. Ceaușescu moments
  8. Ceaușescuism
  9. Ceaușescuist
  10. Ceaușescuists
  11. Ceaușescus

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Ceaușescu moment (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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