Vocabulary in Brave New World

Removed from a bottle or container; here used for the process by which human embryos are grown and released from artificial bottles instead of being born from a mother's womb.

A fixed social class that a person is born — or in this world, engineered — into, determining their role, intelligence, and status for life, with no possibility of moving between levels.

A fictional biological technique in the novel by which a single human embryo is made to bud and divide into up to ninety-six identical copies, mass-producing identical workers.

Relating to hypnopaedia — the practice of teaching children moral slogans and social attitudes by repeating them through loudspeakers while the children sleep, so the lessons sink in without conscious thought.

Describing a method of conditioning that updates Pavlov's experiments — pairing objects with electric shocks or loud noises so that children automatically feel fear or disgust toward those things for the rest of their lives.

Pairs of things that have been linked together in the mind through repeated association, so that one automatically triggers a reaction to the other.

In a way that ties two things together so firmly that they cannot be separated without damaging consequences — here meaning the child's mind is permanently and damagingly joined to those associations.

Impossible to understand or explain; completely mysterious, with no obvious reason behind it.

Shocking and deeply disturbing; so bad or dangerous that it causes horror.

A government-issued happiness drug in the novel — a pill or drink that instantly produces calm, pleasure, or dreamlike escape with no hangover, used to keep citizens content and obedient.

A compulsory religious-style group ritual in the World State where twelve citizens share soma and chant together, designed to dissolve individual identity into a feeling of collective unity.

Giving rich, sensual pleasure to the senses; here describing a deep, almost physical enjoyment of a smell.

Here used in its older sense of 'sacred' or 'holy,' referring to solemn religious ceremonies — not the modern meaning of self-righteous pretending to be moral.

In the World State's slang, used to describe a woman with a pleasingly soft, rounded, full-figured body — borrowed from the engineering word for air-filled and springy.

In a way that shows complete disbelief; unable to accept that what one is seeing or hearing is actually true.

A strong personal sense of having been treated unfairly; a lasting complaint or resentment against others or against one's situation.

The deliberate crafting of words, art, or situations to produce specific feelings in people — here said admiringly of Shakespeare's ability to manipulate emotion through poetry.

An old, highly offensive word for a woman considered sexually immoral or promiscuous; used here as an insult John hurls at Lenina.

A deeply offensive term for a woman regarded as sexually immoral; used here as an insult expressing John's rage at Lenina's casual attitude toward sex.

Deeply offensive and morally repulsive, especially in a sexual sense; here expressing John's horrified view of Lenina's shameless, uninhibited sexuality.

In a slow, grand, and impressively dignified manner, suggesting great size and unhurried power.

A calm, emotionally distant state of mind in which a person feels separated from events around them and untroubled by personal feelings or anxieties.

The systematic process of shaping a person's behaviour, emotions, and beliefs from birth through repeated stimuli, rewards, and punishments, so they automatically think and act as the state requires.

The idea that a person's future role and fate are fixed before they are born; in the novel it refers to the biological and social planning that assigns each person to their caste and job before they are even decanted.