Word.ws English Dictionary

double bind

double bind noun: a dilemma in which someone receives contradictory instructions and cannot act on either.

Noun

double bind (plural double binds)

  1. A dilemma in which someone receives contradictory instructions and cannot act on either.
    • She is deciding, right then and there, if she wants to be seen naked on the internet, forever, an object of desire as well as derision. […] In a sense, as Angel notes, the scene dramatizes “the double bind in which women exist: that saying no may be difficult, but so too is saying yes.”2021 September 3, Helen Lewis, “The Problem With Being Cool About Sex”, in The Atlantic, →ISSN

Forms of double bind

pluraldouble binds

Origin of double bind

Coined by English anthropologist, linguist, semiotician and cyberneticist Gregory Bateson.

Questions about double bind

What does double bind mean?
Double bind means a dilemma in which someone receives contradictory instructions and cannot act on either.
What part of speech is double bind?
Double bind is a noun.
What is the plural of double bind?
The plural of double bind is double binds.

Words near double bind in the dictionary

  1. double besom pocket
  2. double besom pockets
  3. double biceps
  4. double bill
  5. double bills
  6. double bind
  7. double binds
  8. double biscuit
  9. double biscuits
  10. double black diamond
  11. double black diamonds

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: double bind (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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Cite this entry: “double bind.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/double_bind. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.