big brother
Big Brother
Meaning
- A large organization or government agency that tries to control all aspects of human life and society.
- An entity that is the personification of a totalitarian state; someone who personifies the totalitarian state.
- Big Brother also refers to surveillance cameras or CCTV.
Big Brother is a Dutch reality competition television franchise founded by John de Mol Jr., first broadcast in the Netherlands in 1999 and subsequently syndicated globally.
Example Sentences
- You need to aware of everything you do around here. Big Brother sees everything.
- Big Brother says we have to get this done by tomorrow, or else.
- I don’t make the rules. Big Brother does.
- Big brother is here, and he’s most likely watching every one of us.
- The Teachers and the industrialists have complained against the “Big Brother” approach of the government.
- It was still daylight, the area was packed with eyewitnesses, and big brother was watching.
Origin
Big Brother first appeared as a fictional character or symbol in George Orwell’s 1949 novel Nineteen-Eighty-Four. In the novel, Big Brother is the personified head of state, the leader of the ruling party that holds complete power over its citizens by maintaining constant surveillance over the population. It is never revealed whether Big Brother is a real person or merely a personification of a Party, similar to Uncle Sam.
The expression ‘Big Brother is watching‘ was coined in Orwell’s novel. In the modern-day, the term represents an abuse of power, often associated with the loss of civil liberties.
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