How to Use brainwashing in a Sentence

brainwashing

noun
  • Most of them were ready for the brainwashing like sheep going to slaughter.
    — Pamela Weintraub, Discover Magazine, 30 May 2012
  • Women waste so much time and energy on this nonsense, this brainwashing.
    — Los Angeles Times, 18 Dec. 2022
  • All countries have cults, and being well schooled is no protection against brainwashing.
    — The Economist, 12 July 2018
  • And how strange things that can happen between human beings, and the mechanism, brainwashing and all that.
    — Risa Sarachan, Forbes, 13 May 2021
  • According to teens who have been rescued from one of these camps, children are being subjected to out-and-out brainwashing.
    — Chris Roemer, Baltimore Sun, 17 Feb. 2024
  • Meditation is self-brainwashing aimed at taming your monkey mind.
    — John Horgan, Scientific American, 6 Feb. 2021
  • After some kick-ass action, Barnes seems to be at least partially released of his brainwashing by the action of the film.
    — Ron Amadeo, Ars Technica, 27 Feb. 2023
  • After some kick-ass action, Barnes seems to be at least partially released of his brainwashing by the action of the film.
    — Brian Tallerico, Vulture, 18 Mar. 2021
  • Some say that the science of brainwashing has proven that frequency is key, that hammering a message home works, no matter what people like me say.
    — Matthew Gilbert, BostonGlobe.com, 2 Feb. 2023
  • The brainwashing starts with seemingly harmless, comic-book escapism.
    — Armond White, National Review, 22 Nov. 2023
  • Of course, the aspect of the film that has proven to be most intriguing over time is not the brainwashing theme, but rather the assassination subject matter.
    — Gordon Arnold, Slate Magazine, 26 May 2017
  • Culber also mentions that there are new ways to do brainwashing in which one identity is overlaid on top of another identity.
    — Annalee Newitz, Ars Technica, 9 Jan. 2018
  • This is the story of what happens to kids in war, what happens to the mind under a kind of brainwashing, especially a susceptible teenage mind.
    — Mark Olsenstaff Writer, Los Angeles Times, 13 Sep. 2019
  • My work deals with capitalism, consumerism, brainwashing, and the idea of a Black body, and how the Black body is being seen today.
    — Rayna Reid, Essence, 1 Dec. 2021
  • In some cases, deprogrammers would kidnap a group member, detain them for hours or days, and use arguments and videos to try to undo the brainwashing.
    — Michael Schulson/undark, Popular Science, 4 Mar. 2021
  • Hale connects that story to another tale that took place in the same wilderness twenty years earlier—a story of a cult, brainwashing, teenage prophets, and murder.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 6 Jan. 2026
  • The mass media is the biggest tool of indoctrination, brainwashing and propaganda the world has ever seen.
    — Dan Wolken, USA TODAY, 1 Nov. 2022
  • The problem is the popular use of the word is often used to describe authoritarian groups that practice mind control or brainwashing.
    — Mathew Schmalz, The Conversation, 5 Aug. 2021
  • There is an exegesis on brainwashing and transcriptions of psychotherapy sessions; there are echoes and doublings.
    — David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times, 14 Jan. 2022
  • There is little counseling on offer for repatriated Yazidi boys to help treat their trauma or counter the brainwashing they were subjected to.
    — Nima Elbagir, Ghazi Balkiz and Tamara Qiblawi, CNN, 18 Oct. 2017
  • Even if their minds are someday freed after Putin’s regime collapses, propagandistic brainwashing also takes time to undo.
    — Brian Klaas, The Atlantic, 14 Mar. 2024
  • In Demi’s issue, a glossy ad for Gucci printed in the pages before the magazine masthead is jammed with a subtle, studied brainwashing.
    — Cintra Wilson, The New York Review of Books, 11 Feb. 2020
  • In that classic film sequence, the non sequiturs and insinuations produce building tension, as well as the suspicion that brainwashing is involved.
    — Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 24 Mar. 2023
  • Shakespeare put all his understanding of human nature into Iago’s brainwashing master class.
    — Theater Critic, Los Angeles Times, 17 Jan. 2026
  • Reyes said lawyers who wish to make a case for brainwashing or political radicalization would have to demonstrate that their clients have a strong enough mental disability to prevent them from knowing right from wrong.
    — Kevin Krause, Dallas News, 31 Jan. 2021
  • The search resulted not in a miraculous new weapon but a program of simulated brainwashing designed as a prophylactic against enemy mistreatment.
    — Lorraine Boissoneault, Smithsonian, 22 May 2017
  • In contrast, Bistline's defense attorney Daniel Kaiser argued that his client was a victim of severe abuse and brainwashing by Bateman.
    — Lacey Latch, The Arizona Republic, 13 Dec. 2022
  • Dark Persuasion suggests that the language of brainwashing is incommensurate with the problems of our time, and a hangover from the era of America’s most paranoid wars.
    — Jo Livingstone, The New Republic, 17 Aug. 2021
  • In contrast, Bistline's defense attorney, Daniel Kaiser, argued that his client was a victim of severe abuse and brainwashing by Bateman.
    — Miguel Torres, The Arizona Republic, 15 Dec. 2022
  • This is Granny Goodness, another servant of Darkseid who trains elite soldiers for her lord using a combination of sadism, torture, and brainwashing.
    — James Grebey, Vulture, 18 Mar. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'brainwashing.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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