Big Brother

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   Unwarranted, invasive, and discreet surveillance, especially of a people by its…

   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.
   • When one mentions the concepts of identity and governance in the same breath, a virtually autonomic response from many is the concern that a governmental big brother will soon be looking over their shoulders.
2. 2

   Any omnipresent authority or figurehead representing oppressive control.

   • Holonym: the System
   • In the late 1960s and early 1970s, at the height of public concern over the emergence of a Big Brother society, privacy activism shared features in common with some of the hard-line environmental campaigns of the 1990s.
   • When the agencies of the federal government spied on the political activities of US citizens, they moved into the grey area between concern with national security and a Big Brother system that violated constitutional protections.
3. 3

   A sibling's older brother.

   • If you don't give me back my toys I'll tell my big brother!
4. ›+ 3 more definitionsshow fewer

   1. 4

      Something that is bigger in comparison.

   2. 5

      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.
   3. 6

      Alternative form of Big Brother.

The neighborhood