What does "1984-esque" mean?

Resembling or pertaining to a society with a significant amount of surveillance, totalitarianism and censorship.

What is a synonym for "1984-esque"?

Common synonyms include: 1984-ish, orwellesque, orwellian.

1984-esque

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective

1
Resembling or pertaining to a society with a significant amount of surveillance, totalitarianism and censorship.
"What is this globalism anyway? This new world order? This one world order? It all seems very vague to me. When I start hearing those terms, I start imagining some kind of 1984-esque, soulless, desolate society, of dependence on government, with Big Brother as the totalitarian leader, I guess."

Synonyms

All synonyms

1984-ish orwellesque orwellian

Example

More examples

"What is this globalism anyway? This new world order? This one world order? It all seems very vague to me. When I start hearing those terms, I start imagining some kind of 1984-esque, soulless, desolate society, of dependence on government, with Big Brother as the totalitarian leader, I guess."

Etymology

From 1984 + -esque. Piecewise doublet of 1984-ish.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.