Orwell

English

Etymology

From Middle English Orewelle (attested in Chaucer). This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈɔːwɛl/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈoɹwɛl/

Proper noun

Orwell

1. A village and civil parish in South Cambridgeshire district, Cambridgeshire, England (OS grid ref TL3650).
2. A tidal river in Suffolk, England.
3. A settlement in Queens County, Prince Edward Island, Canada.
4. A place in the United States:
   1. A township in Otter Tail County, Minnesota.
   2. A town in Oswego County, New York, named after Orwell, Vermont.
   3. A village in Ashtabula County, Ohio, named after Orwell, Vermont.
   4. A township and unincorporated community in Bradford County, Pennsylvania.
   5. A town in Addison County, Vermont.
5. An English surname (George Orwell took his name from the River Orwell).
   • 2021 January 5, Peter Foster, “Peter Foster: Sustainable Newspeak by 2050”, in Financial Post‎^[1]:

     Nineteen Eighty-Four was written in 1949. Its nightmarish fictional world is now 37 years in the past, so one might reasonably conclude that Orwell was far too pessimistic, but his great book was less a prediction than a warning, and above all an analysis of the totalitarian mentality.

Usage notes

In addition to the construction Orwellian, it is very common to use the author's pseudo-surname as a stand-in for "totalitarian" and to make coinages based on it, e.g. "Orwellabama" (Orwell + Alabama) or "Orwellesque".

Derived terms

• Orwellesque
• Orwellian
• Orwellianism
• Orwellism

Translations

surname

• Arabic: أَرْوَل m (ʾarwal)
• Bulgarian: О́руел m or f (Óruel)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 奧韋爾 / 奥韦尔 (Àowéi'ěr)

• Japanese: オーウェル (Ōweru)
• Marathi: ऑरवेल (ŏrvel), ऑर्वेल (ŏrvel)
• Russian: О́руэлл (ru) (Óruell)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: Орвел

  Latin: Orvel

• Vietnamese: Ô-oen

Anagrams

• Rowell, Woller