censorship
(ˈsɛnsəʃɪp)
[see -ship.]
1. The office of a Roman censor (or its period).
| 1600 Holland Livy 264 (R.) To stand for a censorship. 1869 Rawlinson Anc. Hist. 361 The dignity of the censorship was..lessened by the æmilian law. |
2. a. gen. The office or function of a censor (see censor n. 2); official supervision. spec. control of dramatic production and films (see censor n. 2 b, e).
| 1591 Percivall Sp. Dict., Censura, the censorship or iudgement. 1641 Milton Ch. Govt. ii. iii. (1851) 157 Other thing then a Christian censorship. 1856 Froude Hist. Eng. I. 292 There was no censorship upon speech. 1875 Jowett Plato (ed. 2) V. 42 If I were a lawgiver, I would exercise a censorship over the poets. 1879 Encycl. Brit. IX. 143/1 A notable incident in the history of the stage, inasmuch as it led to the institution of the dramatic censorship. 1912 Times 4 July 6/2 (heading) Cinematograph film censorship. 1918 B. Miall tr. A. Hamon's Lessons of World-War 146 The censorship of all correspondence was a stupendous task. 1930 Times 17 Feb. 15/5 Mr. Shaw on Film Censorship. |
b. spec. of the press: see censor n. 2 b.
| 1827 Hallam Const. Hist. (1876) III. xv. 166 Even during the existence of a censorship, a host of unlicensed publications..bore witness to the inefficacy of its restrictions. 1841 W. Spalding Italy & It. Isl. III. 80 In the middle of 1806, a decree of the viceroy declared, that no literary censorship should be instituted. 1855 Macaulay Hist. Eng. IV. 540 The law which subjected the press to a censorship. 1876 Green Short Hist. viii. §5 (1882) 514 The censorship struck fiercer blows at the Puritan press. |
c. as a university or college office.
| 1880 T. Fowler Locke ii. 12 The Censorship of Natural Philosophy..he appears never to have held. |
3. Psychol. = censor n. 4; the function of a mental censor.
| 1924 W. B. Selbie Psych. Relig. 80 Unpleasant experiences..driven out of consciousness, and kept there by means of what Freud calls a censorship. Ibid. 90 The repressions and censorships of which Freud and others make so much are connected with changes in the nervous system. 1925 tr. Freud's Coll. Papers IV. iii. 54 Dream-formation takes place under the sway of a censorship which compels distortion of the dream-thoughts. |