A General Glossary of Terms for Brave New World
A.F. 632: A.D. 2540. Later it will become clear that the new era begins in 1908, the year in which the American
industrialist Henry Ford (1863-1943) produced his first Model-T car.
Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons: They the five main classes, or castes, of human beings that are
produced in the hatchery. The Alphas are the most intelligent, whereas the Epsilons are almost brainless workers.
Anthrax Bomb: A pre-Ford weapon used in germ warfare.
Aphroditeum: Club name modeled on The Athenaeum, a literary and scientific club that Huxley belonged to.
Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love.
Atonement: Literally "at-one-ment"; twelve people becoming one.
Bokanovsky Group: A batch of children all born from the same fertilized egg, in other words, a very large set of
identical twins.
Bottling: the stage where artificially created embryos are put into sow peritoneum-lined bottles for maturation.
Bradlaugh, Diesel, Engels, Deterding: Most of the surnames in the Brave New World are the names of wellknown thinkers and scientists.
Bumblepuppy or nineholes: A simple game in which balls or marbles are rolled into holes. Here it has
developed into
a new game that requires an expensive piece of machinery.
Charing T: Charing Cross, an important station and junction in London.
Community Sing: A pseudo-religious meeting for the lower castes, promoting fraternity.
Community, Identity, Stability: Motto of the Brave New World. It emphasizes sameness and monotony. It is an
ironic contrast to the battle cry of the French Revolution: Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.
Corpus luteum: Hormone substance produced by the ovary of pregnant women. This syrup and the other drugs
mentioned here are part of Fanny's pregnancy substitute.
Cras and cras, wink and snigger: These words replace the obscene words father and mother.
Decanting: Removal from the bottle, the equivalent of birth in our society.
Ectogenesis: Development of an embryo outside the body of the mother.
Emotional Engineering: The profession responsible for preparing propagandistic diversions for the people.
Erotic Play: A pastime for Utopian children, involving exploration of each other’s bodies and meant to absolve
all feelings of guilt associated with sex.
Feelies: These picture shows that offer the audience not only visual and auditory images but also tactual
sensations
(affecting the sense of touch).
Five Step: A popular Utopian dance.
Fleet Street: The street where most London newspapers have their offices.
Ford: The God figure of Brave New World, modeled after Henry Ford.
Ford's in his flivver: A flivver is a slang word for a small car. Hence, the expression is a parody of Robert
Browning's poem called Pippa's Song, which ends with the lines: "God's in his heaven; All's right with the
world".
Freemartin: Sexually sterile female.
Hypnopaedia: Sleep-teaching technique to inculcate prejudices into the subconscious of the sleeper.
Internal and External Secretion Trust: Organization in charge of hormones and extracts to keep people young
and happy.
Kiva: Underground temple.
Lupus: Disease causing redness of the skin.
Malthusian belt: The belt holding a supply of contraceptives, named after Thomas Malthus, one of the earliest
political economists to be concerned about population growth and strongly advocate birth control.
Mescal: Alcoholic drink made from the leaves of the agave, a desert plant.
Neo-Pavlovian: Ivan Pavlov was a Russian physiologist (1849-1936) who discovered the principles of
conditioning and behaviorism. The conditioning of the babies by noises and electric shocks is based on his
principles of acquired reflexes.
Octoroon: Person with one black and seven white grandparents.
Orgy-porgy: A parody of an old nursery rhyme about Georgie Porgy, a naughty boy who "kissed the girls and
made them cry.” A ritual where indiscriminate, en masse sexual relations ensure solidarity in the participants.
Phosgene, etc.: chemicals used in warfare.
Pneumatic: Originally meant "air-filled"; in the Brave New World it is used to describe a woman who has a
good figure.
Power Elite: an exclusive and restricted group which exercises power by forceful means.
Pregnancy Substitute: It has been found that women are healthier if they have been pregnant. Since pregnancy
no longer occurs in the Brave New World, its effects are imitated with drugs.
Pueblo: Indian village in the southwestern U.S., consisting of clay houses arranged in terraces.
Scent and Color Organ: a console that plays concertos of fragrant aromas and shows of colored lights.
Sex-hormone chewing gum: an artificial means of gaining sexual satisfaction.
Solidarity Service: a pseudo-religious gathering to promote fraternity among the upper castes.
Soma: Drug that makes a person feel happy and carefree. It is frequently consumed to escape reality, mainly in
the form of tablets. For the state, it serves as a tool of preserving social stability.
T-Model: the equivalent of a religious symbol, meant to be a play upon the Christian cross. It honors Ford and
alludes to his Model-T car.
Violent Passion Surrogate (V.P.S.): A chemical intended to give the body the psychological experience of
having had normal sexual relations.
Viviparous: Naturally producing living young. The use of such a scientific term indicates the embarrassment felt
by the students at the ideas of birth and parentage, which they have been conditioned to regard as obscene.
Voice of Good Feeling: The artificial voice that suppresses any riot by soothing the people with suggestions of
peace through loudspeakers.
Will-to-Order: The drive in human beings that compels them to forge unity out of diversity to the extent of
over-organizing things.
Y.W.F.A.: Young Women's Fordian Association, corresponding to the Young Women's Christian Association.