hypnopaedia en · NOUN
Etymology
From hypno- (“sleep”) + Ancient Greek παιδεία (paideía, “education”), popularized in the novel Brave New World (1932).
Meanings
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(uncountable) Teaching (or learning) by subconscious means.
Sometimes this Malay, a youngish man with a most charming smile, would be deferential to Crabbe, showing great anxiety to learn; at other times he would enter the office as though, in sleep, an angel had visited him, teaching him all in painless hypnopaedia.
1959, Anthony Burgess, Beds in the East (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 454:'In the end,' said Mustapha Mond, 'the Controllers realized that force was no good. The slower but infinitely surer methods of ectogenesis, Neo-Pavlovian conditioning and hypnopædia…'
1932, Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, London: Chatto & Windus:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| hypnopædia | alternative, rare | lexicographic | |
| hypnopedia | US, alternative | lexicographic |