Word.ws English Dictionary

self-censorship

self-censorship noun: the act of censoring one's own work or what one says without overt pressure from any specific party or institution of authority, often for fear of sanctions.

Noun

self-censorship (usually uncountable, plural self-censorships)

  1. (usually) The act of censoring one's own work or what one says without overt pressure from any specific party or institution of authority, often for fear of sanctions.
    • The practice of self-censorship serves as a preemptive measure to avoid direct censorship or persecution when governments in autocratizing countries tighten their grip.2026, “Unraveling The Democratic Era?”, in V-Dem Institute, archived from the original on 17 Mar 2026, page 13

Forms of self-censorship

pluralself-censorships

Origin of self-censorship

From self- + censorship.

Questions about self-censorship

What does self-censorship mean?
Self-censorship means the act of censoring one's own work or what one says without overt pressure from any specific party or institution of authority, often for fear of sanctions.
What part of speech is self-censorship?
Self-censorship is a noun.
What is the plural of self-censorship?
The plural of self-censorship is self-censorships.

Words near self-censorship in the dictionary

  1. self-caused
  2. self-censor
  3. self-censored
  4. self-censoring
  5. self-censors
  6. self-censorship
  7. self-censorships
  8. self-centered
  9. self-centeredness
  10. self-centerednesses
  11. self-centering

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: self-censorship (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: “self-censorship.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/self-censorship. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.