Dictionary

Big Brother en · NOUN

Etymology

After the nominal leader of Oceania in the 1949 dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by British writer and journalist George Orwell.

Meanings

1. Unwarranted, invasive, and discreet surveillance, especially of a people by its government.
   • When one mentions the concepts of identity and governance in the same breath, a virtually autonomic response from many is the concern that a governmental big brother will soon be looking over their shoulders. 2008, Bertrand du Castel, Timothy M. Jurgensen Computer Theology, page 314
   • Some people are worried about marketing calls at dinnertime or junk mail or spam, while others are more concerned about Big Brother. 2002, Lorrie Faith Cranor, Web privacy with P3P, page 12
2. Any omnipresent authority or figurehead representing oppressive control.
   • Holonym: the System
   • When the agencies of the federal government spied on the political activities of US citizens, they moved into the grey area between concern with national security and a Big Brother system that violated constitutional protections. 2003, Rodney Carlisle, Rodney P. Carlisle, Complete idiot's guide to spies and espionage, page 195
   • In the late 1960s and early 1970s, at the height of public concern over the emergence of a Big Brother society, privacy activism shared features in common with some of the hard-line environmental campaigns of the 1990s. 1999, Rebecca A. Grant, Colin John Bennett, Visions of privacy: policy choices for the digital age, page 244

Forms

Coordinates

the man · leviathan

Deriveds

Big-Brotherish · Big Brotherish · Big Brotherism

Descendants

Grande Irmão · Μεγάλος Αδελφός · Nagy Testvér · Gran Hermano · Wielki Brat · storebror · isoveli · Большо́й Брат · Big Brother

Translations (17)

pt Grande Irmão (authority representing oppressive control) · fr Big Brother (unwarranted and invasive government surveillance) · es Gran Hermano (unwarranted and invasive government surveillance) · sh veliki brat (unwarranted and invasive government surveillance) · pl Wielki Brat (authority representing oppressive control) · cy Brawd Mawr (authority representing oppressive control) · pl Wielki Brat (unwarranted and invasive government surveillance) · sh велики брат (unwarranted and invasive government surveillance) · cy Brawd Mawr (unwarranted and invasive government surveillance) · cmn 老大哥 (authority representing oppressive control) · fi isoveli (unwarranted and invasive government surveillance) · el Μεγάλος Αδελφός (unwarranted and invasive government surveillance) · sv storebror (unwarranted and invasive government surveillance) · pt Grande Irmão (unwarranted and invasive government surveillance) · hu Nagy Testvér (unwarranted and invasive government surveillance) · ru Большо́й Брат (unwarranted and invasive government surveillance) · es Gran Hermano (authority representing oppressive control)

wikipedia: Oceania (Nineteen Eighty-Four) · wikipedia: Nineteen Eighty-Four