Wiktionary:Word of the day/2021/December 11

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Word of the day
for December 11
gulag n
  1. (historical) Also GULAG: the system of all Soviet labour camps and prisons in use, especially during the Stalinist period (1930s–1950s).
  2. (by extension)
    1. A prison camp, especially one used to hold political prisoners.
    2. (also figuratively) A place where, or political system in which, people with dissident views are routinely oppressed.

gulag v

  1. (transitive, informal, also figuratively) To compel (someone) into a forced labour camp or a similar place of confinement or exile.

The Russian author and dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who spent eight years in the gulag system and later wrote The Gulag Archipelago (first published 1973), was born on this day in 1918.

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