Dictionary

white terror en · NOUN

Etymology

By analogy with red terror, with the "white" Thermidorian Reaction against the "red" reign of terror.

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) Coordinated violence committed against (actual or imagined) socialists and their sympathizers.
   • I looked out the window of the former Grand Hotel de Pekin and thought of the days before World War II when I waltzed there with assorted Nazi, fascist and Scandinavian diplomats. On the street the slow‐moving bicycles moved silently where once I listened to the shuffling pad‐pad of camels bringing coal from Mentoukou. On these streets on Dec. 9, 1935, desperate Peking students had declared war on all kinds of fascism (so had I) and marched to break the “white terror,” as they called it. 1973 May 31, Nym Wales, “‘I Was Back in Peking’”, in The New York Times, sourced from MADISON, Conn., →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 10 Nov 2024, page 41:
2. (Hong-Kong, countable, uncountable) The erosion of democratic freedoms under Chinese rule.

Forms

Antonyms

red terror

Translations (14)

pt terror branco (violence) · fr terreur blanche (violence) · pl biały terror (violence) · vi khủng bố trắng (violence) · fi valkoinen terrori (violence) · el λευκή τρομοκρατία (violence) · ko 백색 테러 (violence) · it terrore bianco (violence) · cmn 白色恐怖 (violence) · ja 白色テロ (violence) · es terror blanco (violence) · ro teroare albă (violence) · hu fehérterror (violence) · ca terror blanc (violence)