telescreen means A screen for broadcasting television or similar media, especially one that shows propaganda and records or spies on the user. It carries an Arena rating of 1510, earned across 56 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, telescreen ranks #274 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #473 of 17,104 for Most Storied Words, #518 of 17,131 for Scariest Words, #610 of 17,138 for Most Incisive Words.
Why “telescreen” is a great word
TELESCREEN — [Noun] A two-way screen used for broadcasting propaganda and conducting constant surveillance. From the combining form tele- ("distant") + screen, specifically from the word television. Popularized by George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). Unlike "television," which implies passive, one-way reception, or "monitor," a neutral term for a display, the telescreen is defined by its sinister interactivity. It is the blank, glowing eye in the wall, the source of both mandatory calisthenics and the midnight arrest, the silent witness that turns private space into a panopticon cell—the perfect technological artifact of a state that demands not just obedience, but visible, audible participation in its own fiction.
Etymology
From tele- + screen, from television. Popularized by George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), in which they are used for government surveillance of citizens.
noun
- A screen for broadcasting television or similar media, especially one that shows propaganda and records or spies on the user.e.g.“Too many millions of people, watching their telescreens, had seen his unpardonable arrogance.” — 1973, Robert Theobald, Stephanie Mills, The failure of success: ecological values vs. economic myths:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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