book burning

See also: book-burning

English

Noun

book burning (countable and uncountable, plural book burnings)

1. (literally) A mass burning of books, intended as a form of political and/or religious censorship.
2. (by extension, idiomatic) Any mass destruction, removal, or recalling of books, motion pictures, broadcasts, or electronic works as a form of censorship, especially motivated by religious or political objections to the material.
   • 1987, “Exhuming McCarthy”, in Document (R.E.M. No. 5), performed by R.E.M.:

     Exhuming McCarthy (meet me at the book burning, meet me at the book burning)

Synonyms

• bibliocide

Translations

book burning

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 焚書／焚书 (zh) (fénshū)

• Finnish: kirjarovio (fi)
• German: Bücherverbrennung (de) f
• Hungarian: könyvégetés (hu)
• Icelandic: bókabrenna f
• Japanese: 焚書 (ja) (ふんしょ, funsho)
• Korean: 분서(焚書) (ko) (Bunseo)
• Swedish: bokbål n