big brother
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Big Brother¹
Where it comes from
After the nominal leader of Oceania in the 1949 dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by British writer and journalist George Orwell.
noun Big Brothers · big brother
- Unwarranted, invasive, and discreet surveillance, especially of a people by its government. Some people are worried about marketing calls at dinnertime or junk mail or spam, while others are more concerned about Big Brother.
- Any omnipresent authority or figurehead representing oppressive control. Holonym: the System
big brother²
noun big brothers
- A sibling's older brother. If you don't give me back my toys I'll tell my big brother!
- Something that is bigger in comparison. While the little MTU Vee-12s in the Class 800 bi-mode generating units have lower overall emissions than their big brothers in the Class 43 IC125 power cars, in the case of CO₂, when you burn a litre of diesel fuel you get 2.8kg of CO₂. [a possible error in the original text]
- early mobile phones (in China) Due to the size of Big Brother and the fact that people who used it were mostly big brothers in the business world, this thing quickly became a status symbol.
- Alternative form of Big Brother
Translations
Every language
noun unwarranted and invasive government surveillance
| Español | Gran Hermano |
|---|---|
| Português | Grande Irmão |
| Français | Big Brother |
| Ελληνικά | Μεγάλος Αδελφός Megálos Adelfós |
| Русский | Ста́рший Брат Stáršij Brat, Большо́й Брат Bolʹšój Brat |
noun authority representing oppressive control
| Español | Gran Hermano |
|---|---|
| 中文 | 老大哥 lǎodàgē |
| Português | Grande Irmão |
Talk about this word "big brother." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/big%20brother. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. big brother. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/big%20brother "big brother." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/big%20brother.Cite this
@misc{big_brother_2026,
title = {big brother},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/big%20brother},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
