Meaning of big brother | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A sibling's older brother.
   childish, often
2. Unwarranted, invasive, and discreet surveillance, especially of a people by its government.
3. Any omnipresent authority or figurehead representing oppressive control.
4. Something that is bigger in comparison.
   figuratively
5. early mobile phones (in China)
   figuratively

Equivalents

Examples

“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.”

“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.”

“If you don't give me back my toys I'll tell my big brother!”

“While the little MTU Vee-12s in the Class 800 bi-mode generating units have lower overall emissions than their big brothers in the Class 43 IC125 power cars, in the case of CO₂, when you burn a litre of diesel fuel you get 2.8kg of CO₂. [a possible error in the original text]”

“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.”

CEFR level