big brother


noun
  1. an elder brother.

  2. (sometimes initial capital letters) a man who individually or as a member of an organized group undertakes to sponsor or assist a boy in need of help or guidance.

  1. (usually initial capital letters) the head of a totalitarian regime that keeps its citizens under close surveillance.

  2. (usually initial capital letters) the aggregate of officials and policy makers of a powerful and pervasive state.

  3. Citizens Band Radio Slang. a police officer or police car.

Origin of big brother

1
1860–65; 1949 for defs. 3, 4, the epithet of a dictator in G. Orwell's novel 1984

Words Nearby big brother

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use big brother in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for Big Brother

Big Brother

noun
  1. a person, organization, etc, that exercises total dictatorial control

  2. a television gameshow format in which a small number of people living in accommodation sealed off from the outside world are constantly monitored by TV cameras. Viewers vote each week to expel a person from the group until there is only one person left, who wins a cash prize

Origin of Big Brother

1
C20: after a character in George Orwell's novel 1984 (1949)

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012