doublespeak en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- /ˈdəbəlˌspiːk/
- (Southern-England) audio
Etymology
From double + -speak. Coined in the 1950s in the vein of George Orwell's Newspeak as used in his book Nineteen Eighty-Four. The word doublespeak does not appear in the book, although newspeak, oldspeak, and doublethink do.
Meanings
-
(uncountable) Any language deliberately constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning, often by employing euphemism or ambiguity.
The popular and convergent use of information seems to represent something beyond the mere cosmetics of doublespeak, of a "garbage collector" turned "sanitary engineer" or a "strike" turned "work stoppage."
1976, Brent D. Ruben, “The Coming of the Information Age”, in Brent D. Ruben, editor, Information and Behavior, page 7:The report was riddled with so much corporate doublespeak that it was impossible to interpret.
Hypernyms
Synonyms
Translations (10)
cmn 雙言巧語 /双言巧语 (language deliberately constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning) · sv skenspråk (language deliberately constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning) · fr double langage (language deliberately constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning) · pl gra półsłówek (language deliberately constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning) · fr double discours (language deliberately constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning) · hu mellébeszélés (language deliberately constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning) · fi kaksoispuhe (language deliberately constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning) · hu kettős beszéd (language deliberately constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning) · es doble lenguaje (language deliberately constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning) · el διγλωσσία (language deliberately constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning)