Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A crime committed by having unorthodox, unofficial, controversial or socially unacceptable thoughts.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Coined by George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

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Examples

  • Any attempt to deny a thoughtcrime is itself a thoughtcrime.

    Author vs. Critic - A Fairy Tale 2004

  • "Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime is death."

    Quotes from Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four 1995

  • The book contributed several iconic terms to the political lexicon -- "Big Brother," "thoughtcrime" -- and perhaps most profoundly prescient -- the concept of "doublethink."

    George Orwell is Reborn as Mitch McConnell 2010

  • In George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four the government attempts to control not only the speech and actions, but also the thoughts of its subjects, labelling unapproved thoughts with the term thoughtcrime or, in Newspeak, "crimethink".

    Thoughtcrime 1995

  • Dubious -- but if anyone wants to defend the idea of "thoughtcrime," be my guest.

    Was RapeLay 'Asking For It'? SVGL 2009

  • This suits the totalitarian regime of the Party, whose aim is to make any alternative thinking "thoughtcrime" or speech impossible by removing any words or possible constructs which describe the ideas of freedom, rebellion and so on.

    Archive 2008-01-01 FIDO The Dog 2008

  • Some people believe governments may be currently enforcing laws that implement a de-facto kind of thoughtcrime legislation.

    Thoughtcrime 1995

  • This suited the totalitarian regime of the Party, whose aim was to make subversive thought ( "thoughtcrime") and speech impossible.

    Newspeak and George Orwell's 1984 1950

  • The real issue here is about getting the ISP’s in a position to filter content, specifically content that is politically ‘inconvenient’ or could be labelled thoughtcrime hate-crime.

    Firedoglake » Going Well, Eh? 2006

  • If you want to try to define the various things that Operation Predator as "thoughtcrime", go right ahead but the vast majority of Americans think that individuals that take concrete steps to, say, have intercourse with a young child ought to be punished.

    Slashdot: Your Rights Online 2009

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  • "The thought police would get him just the same. He had committed--would have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper--the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you."

    - George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 1

    July 26, 2009