unperson
Officially nonexistent citizen
An unperson is someone erased from public existence—removed from records, photographs, and official history as though they never existed.
The term comes from George Orwell's *1984*, where the totalitarian state made dissidents vanish completely.
It now describes anyone deliberately written out of institutional memory: After the scandal, he became an unperson in Hollywood.
As a verb, to unperson someone is to subject them to this erasure.
Convert to gas
- memory holeDevice for erasing history
- thoughtcrimeProhibited beliefs under authoritarianism
- Big BrotherTotalitarian surveillance authority
- Ministry of TruthState falsification agency
doublethink · Oceania · Room 101 · telescreen · proles · Goldstein · rectify · unorthodoxy
Convert to gas
- deletionRemoval of content
- expungementOfficial record removal
- obliterationTotal destruction or erasure
- effacementAct of erasing completely
purge · redaction · elimination · removal · eradication · airbrushing · retouching · scrubbing
Eliminate unwanted elements
- StalinismTotalitarian Communist doctrine
- show trialPredetermined judicial spectacle
- gulagForced labor prison system
- damnatio memoriaePosthumous erasure from records
Soviet · airbrushing · NKVD · Trotsky · rehabilitation · denounce · liquidate · surveillance
Record of prohibited entities
- suppressForcibly put an end to
- redactConceal text for secrecy
- banOfficial restriction on something
- silenceTotal lack of sound
censor · delist · scrub · deplatform · shadowban · sanitize · bowdlerize · expurgate
Rejected, shunned person
- exileBanishment from homeland
- nonentityUnimportant person or thing
- persona non grataOfficially unwelcome individual
- undesirableNot wanted or sought
untouchable · ostracized · shunned · banished · excommunicated · blackballed · cast out · disowned
vaporize
Convert to gas
- memory holeDevice for erasing history
- thoughtcrimeProhibited beliefs under authoritarianism
- Big BrotherTotalitarian surveillance authority
Ministry of Truth · doublethink · Oceania · Room 101 · telescreen · proles · Goldstein · rectify · unorthodoxy · Winston Smith
vaporize
Convert to gas
- deletionRemoval of content
- expungementOfficial record removal
- obliterationTotal destruction or erasure
effacement · purge · redaction · elimination · removal · eradication · airbrushing · retouching · scrubbing · disappearance
purge
Eliminate unwanted elements
- StalinismTotalitarian Communist doctrine
- show trialPredetermined judicial spectacle
- gulagForced labor prison system
damnatio memoriae · Soviet · airbrushing · NKVD · Trotsky · rehabilitation · denounce · liquidate · surveillance · police state
blacklist
Record of prohibited entities
silence · censor · delist · scrub · deplatform · shadowban · sanitize · bowdlerize · expurgate · muzzle
pariah
Rejected, shunned person
- exileBanishment from homeland
- nonentityUnimportant person or thing
- persona non grataOfficially unwelcome individual
undesirable · untouchable · ostracized · shunned · banished · excommunicated · blackballed · cast out · disowned · expelled
- Orwelliannewspeak, doublethink, Big Brother, thoughtcrime, Ministry of Truth
- outcastsoutcast, pariah, pariahs, outcasts, outlaws
unpersonperson
Human individual
historical figure · citizen · somebody · public figure · legal person