Openwashing
noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The act of claiming something is open (without proprietary licensing) when it does not meet all the criteria of openness. uncountable
"Evgeny Morozov (2013) recently took issue with the seemingly ubiquitous presence of “open” initiatives in contemporary culture and pointed to the reading of “openness into situations and environments where it doesn't exist” as acts of “openwashing.” Yet, as Morozov also argues, a consideration of openwashing only helps us question the authenticity of open initiatives but does little to help us consider what openness should mean."
- 1 present participle and gerund of openwash form-of, gerund, participle, present
Example
More examples"Evgeny Morozov (2013) recently took issue with the seemingly ubiquitous presence of “open” initiatives in contemporary culture and pointed to the reading of “openness into situations and environments where it doesn't exist” as acts of “openwashing.” Yet, as Morozov also argues, a consideration of openwashing only helps us question the authenticity of open initiatives but does little to help us consider what openness should mean."
Etymology
From open + -wash + -ing.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.