Word.ws English Dictionary

Nineteen Eighty-Four

Nineteen Eighty-Four noun: a society characterized by rigid government control enforced through propaganda and intensive surveillance.

Noun

Nineteen Eighty-Four (uncountable)

  1. A society characterized by rigid government control enforced through propaganda and intensive surveillance.
    • I cannot help but follow such panopticism to its ultimate conclusion: a Nineteen Eighty-Four scenario.2008, Ilan Kapoor, The Postcolonial Politics of Development, page 69
    • The term 'nuclear family' may be found dislikable, but it is useful in avoiding the suggestion that Plato wants to abolish the family in favour of impersonal institutions of a Nineteen Eighty-Four type.1999, Gail Fine, Plato Two: Ethics, Politics, Religion, and the Soul, page 265

Examples of Nineteen Eighty-Four in a sentence

  • Thus arises again the specter of a Nineteen Eighty-Four, of a brave new world of robots, of a waste land that is ever more sterile, of a West that is sick from lack of mysticism.1970, William Johnston, The still point: reflections on Zen and Christian mysticism, page 171:
  • Whether produced as a Utopia or as a Nineteen Eighty-Four, a condition of changelessness would make man something less than human.1969, Bryce F. Ryan, Social and cultural change, page 3:
  • Wright Mills' The Power Elite as providing "the best description of the progress made toward a Nineteen Eighty-Four social order in the United States.1968, Arthur Goddard, Harry Elmer Barnes, learned crusader: the new history in action, page 331:

Forms of Nineteen Eighty-Four

alternative form1984

Origin of Nineteen Eighty-Four

After Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), a dystopian novel by George Orwell, set in the year 1984.

Questions about Nineteen Eighty-Four

What does Nineteen Eighty-Four mean?
Nineteen Eighty-Four means a society characterized by rigid government control enforced through propaganda and intensive surveillance.
How do you use Nineteen Eighty-Four in a sentence?
Thus arises again the specter of a Nineteen Eighty-Four, of a brave new world of robots, of a waste land that is ever more sterile, of a West that is sick from lack of mysticism.
What part of speech is Nineteen Eighty-Four?
Nineteen Eighty-Four is a noun.

Words near Nineteen Eighty-Four in the dictionary

  1. ninescore
  2. ninesies
  3. ninesome
  4. ninesomes
  5. nineteen
  6. Nineteen Eighty-Four
  7. nineteen hand
  8. nineteen hands
  9. nineteen hundred
  10. nineteen hundreds
  11. nineteen to the dozen

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Nineteen Eighty-Four (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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