brave new world

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English

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Etymology

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From the title of Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel Brave New World, itself a reference to a line from The Tempest (1610), see quotations.

Noun

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brave new world (plural brave new worlds)

  1. A better, often utopian (future) world.
    • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies [] (First Folio), London: [] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i], page 17:
      O wonder! / How many goodly creatures are there heere? / How beauteous mankinde is? O braue new world / That has ſuch people in't.
    • 1999, Helen Kelly-Holmes, European Television Discourse in Transition[1], →ISBN, page 6:
      Will digital broadcasting, 'mega-channel-land', change everything or nothing? Will it be a brave new world, or simply more of the same?
  2. A terrible, often oppressive or dystopian world.
    • 2005, Will Watson, “The Ethics of Living American Primacy”, in Allan Eickelman et al., editors, Justice and Violence: Political Violence, Pacifism and Cultural Transformation[2], →ISBN, page 103:
      In this brave new world, the IMF and other Western financial institutions dictated radical free trade "shock treatment" to both developing nations and the former USSR ...

Translations

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