# propaganda

Pronunciation: say "prop-uh-GAN-duh" US /ˌpɹɑpəˈɡændə/, UK /ˌpɹɒpəˈɡændə/

## Noun

1. Public communication aimed at influencing an audience that is biased, misleading, or designed to provoke mainly emotional responses.
   - Simple: Information that tries to change what people think by twisting facts or playing on their feelings.
   - _The regime flooded the airwaves with propaganda blaming foreigners for the food shortages._
   - _Critics dismissed the documentary as propaganda dressed up as journalism._
2. Information, publicity, or agitation spread among the public to sway opinion and advance a particular cause or agenda.
   - Simple: Messages and information shared with many people to win their support for an idea or cause.
   - _The ministry's propaganda campaign encouraged citizens to conserve fuel during the shortage._
   - _Early Soviet filmmakers treated cinema as a powerful vehicle for propaganda._
3. The propagation of the Catholic faith by the Church through missionary work and related efforts.
   - Simple: The Catholic Church's work of spreading its faith in other lands, mainly by sending priests abroad.
   - _Cardinal Barberini championed the propaganda of the faith in the missions of East Asia._
   - _Seminaries in Rome trained clergy specifically for propaganda in newly explored territories._

## Origin

From New Latin prōpāganda, a shortening of Congregātiō dē Prōpāgandā Fidē, the name of a committee of cardinals set up in 1622 by Gregory XV to oversee foreign missions, literally "congregation for propagating the faith." It is properly the feminine gerundive of Latin prōpāgō ("propagate"). The modern political sense dates from World War I and was not originally negative.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/propaganda (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).