This week’s theme
Words from 1984 that are now a part of the language

This week’s words
newspeak
doublethink
Big Brother
unperson
oldspeak

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(DUB-uhl-thingk)

MEANING:

noun: An acceptance of two contradictory ideas at the same time.

ETYMOLOGY:

From George Orwell’s novel 1984. Earliest documented use: 1949.

NOTES:

Better to do double entendre than to doublethink.

USAGE:

“Meat, for me as for so many, is a moral quandary; a grey area of doublethink. Britain is a nation of animal lovers, we are often told, and yet we are also a nation of meat-eaters.”
Hugo Rifkind; Meat Is Murder But I Can’t Get Enough of It; The Times (London, UK); Dec 12, 2017.

See more usage examples of doublethink in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: