doublethink means the holding of two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously and accepting both of them as true or correct, without acknowledging the contradiction. It carries an Arena rating of 2001, earned across 111 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, doublethink ranks #1 of 17,138 for Most Incisive Words, #8 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #222 of 17,131 for Scariest Words, #316 of 17,104 for Most Storied Words.
Why “doublethink” is a great word
DOUBLETHINK — [Noun] The simultaneous, willful acceptance of two mutually contradictory beliefs as true, particularly as a result of systematic political indoctrination. From English double (meaning "twice or twofold") + think (meaning "an act of thinking"). Coined in 1949 by George Orwell in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Unlike "hypocrisy," which is a conscious mask over private disbelief, or "cognitive dissonance," which describes the mental strain of conflicting ideas, doublethink is the seamless, willful integration of the impossible. It is the citizen fervently applauding the ministry that starves him, the historian meticulously erasing the event he once witnessed, and the quiet, internal click that accepts war as peace—a triumph of the will so complete, it forgets the fracture ever existed.
Etymology
From double + think. Coined by George Orwell in 1949 as part of the Newspeak in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.
noun
- The holding of two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously and accepting both of them as true or correct, without acknowledging the contradiction.e.g.“The stars can be near or distant, according as we need them. Do you suppose our mathematicians are unequal to that? Have you forgotten doublethink?” — 1949 June 8, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter 3, in Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC; republished [Australia]: Project Gutenberg of Australia, August
verb
- To engage in doublethink.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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