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big brother

 Origin

big brother

 
noun
1.
an elder brother.
2.
(sometimes initial capital letters) a man who individually or as a member of an organized group undertakes to sponsor or assist a boy in need of help or guidance.
3.
(usually initial capital letters) the head of a totalitarian regime that keeps its citizens under close surveillance.
4.
(usually initial capital letters) the aggregate of officials and policy makers of a powerful and pervasive state.
5.
Citizens Band Radio Slang. a police officer or police car.
Origin:
1860–65; 1949 for defs. 3 and 4, the epithet of a dictator in G. Orwell's novel 1984
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Big brother is always a great word to know.
So is doohickey. Does it mean:
a fool or simpleton; ninny.
a gadget; dingus; thingumbob.
LEARN MORE UNUSUAL WORDS WITH WORD DYNAMO...
Collins
World English Dictionary
Big Brother
 
—n
1.  a person, organization, etc, that exercises total dictatorial control
2.  a television gameshow format in which a small number of people living in accommodation sealed off from the outside world are constantly monitored by TV cameras. Viewers vote each week to expel a person from the group until there is only one person left, who wins a cash prize
 
[C20: after a character in George Orwell's novel 1984 (1949)]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline
Word Origin & History

Big Brother
"ubiquitous and repressive but apparently benevolent authority" first recorded 1949, from George Orwell's novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four."
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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Slang Dictionary

big brother definition


  1. n.
    a personification of the totalitarian state. (From George Orwell's 1984.) : Big brother has changed the tax laws again.
  2. n.
    someone who personifies the totalitarian state: the police, parents, teachers. : Big brother says the paper is due tomorrow, or else.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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