indoctrination

Etymology

It is formed from English indoctrinate + -ion.^[2][3][4][5] Indoctrinate, recorded from 1621 in the OED and 1626 in Barnhart and Merriam-Webster Unabridged,^[2][4][3] is probably the earlier verb indoctrine remodelled on the English verbs in -ate;^[4][3][6] Etymonline notes that it is formed as if from Latin, though no such Latin verb seems to have existed.^[7] The OED instead posits Latin *indoctrīnāre, perhaps used in medieval or modern Latin, and compares Italian indottrinare and French endoctriner.^[2] Indoctrine itself, recorded from about 1450, is endoctrinen, from Old French endoctriner,^[2][8][4] formed from en- and doctrine,^[2][4] which comes from Latin doctrīna (“teaching, learning”).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Instruction, formal teaching: 1646, in Sir Thomas Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica.^[2][4][7]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) still defined indoctrination simply as "instruction; information", quoting Browne.^[9] The verb took the sense "to imbue with a doctrine or opinion" in 1832,^[2][7] and Etymonline dates the noun's sense of instilling opinions or an ideology to 1865.^[7] In the 20th century the word was used especially of the systematic instruction of prisoners of war and others in Communist doctrine, close to brainwashing;^[2][6] the Historical Thesaurus dates this sense of instilling ideas to 1950.^[10]

Timeline

• 1646 – instruction, formal teaching.^[2][4][7]
• 1865 – the instilling of opinions or an ideology.^[7]
• 1950 – the teaching of a doctrine to be accepted uncritically, as of prisoners of war in Communist ideas.^[10][2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act or process of indoctrinating, teaching someone to accept a doctrine, ideology or set of beliefs without questioning them, or the state of having been taught so: The recruits underwent weeks of political indoctrination.^[3][2][6]
2. (archaic) Instruction; formal teaching.^[2][9]

Related words

• indoctrinate
• doctrine
• doctrinaire

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
9. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)