To forcefully change someone’s beliefs or opinions using pressure, control, or manipulation.
Modeled on Chinese “xǐnǎo,” literally “wash brain,” used in the mid‑20th century about political re‑education. English borrowed the image to describe extreme mental manipulation.
The term “brainwash” is shockingly literal: it imagines someone scrubbing your thoughts clean and rewriting who you are. That vivid picture is why the word stuck so quickly in modern languages and politics.
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