Standard Lemma guide

thoughtcrime

noun · 1 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

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  • Received-Pronunciation: /ˈθɔːtˌkɹaɪm/

1

noun

Meaning 1

A crime committed by having unorthodox, unofficial, controversial or socially unacceptable thoughts.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: countable, uncountable

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

From thought + crime, coined by George Orwell in 1949 in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Across languages

Translations

20 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Bulgarian: зла умисъл (zla umisǎl) — a crime
  • Chinese Mandarin: 思想犯罪 (sīxiǎng fànzuì) — a crime
  • Chinese Mandarin: 思想罪 (sīxiǎngzuì) — a crime
  • Chinese Mandarin: 思罪 (sīzuì) — a crime
  • Czech: ideozločin — a crime
  • Dutch: gedachtemisdaad — a crime
  • Estonian: mõtteroim — a crime
  • Finnish: ajatusrikos — a crime
  • French: crimepensée — a crime
  • German: Gedankenverbrechen — a crime
  • Hungarian: gondolatbűn — a crime
  • Marathi: विचार-गुन्हा (vicār-gunhā) — a crime
  • Polish: myślozbrodnia — a crime
  • Russian: мыслепреступле́ние (mysleprestuplénije) — a crime
  • Russian: преступмы́сль (prestupmýslʹ) — a crime
  • Serbo-Croatian: зломисао — a crime
  • Serbo-Croatian: zlomisao — a crime
  • Swedish: tankebrott — a crime
  • Swedish: krimtänk — a crime
  • Ukrainian: думкозлочин (dumkozločyn) — a crime