brainwashing.
A form of indoctrination that forces people to abandon their beliefs in favour of another set of beliefs by conditioning through various forms of pressure or torture.
Meaning & usage
A form of indoctrination that forces people to abandon their beliefs in favour of another set of beliefs by conditioning through various forms of pressure or torture.
Where this word comes from
Calque of Chinese 洗腦 /洗脑 (xǐnǎo, literally “wash brain”). First use appears c. 1950.
present participle and gerund of brainwash
Where this word comes from
Calque of Chinese 洗腦 /洗脑 (xǐnǎo, literally “wash brain”). First use appears c. 1950.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.