INDOCTRINATE
verb | in-DAHK-truh-nayt
What It Means
To indoctrinate someone is to teach them to fully accept the ideas, opinions, and beliefs of a particular group while categorically rejecting other ideas, opinions, and beliefs.
// The video series attempts to indoctrinate younger audiences with ahistorical and unscientific ideas.
Indoctrinate in Context
“They worry about being ‘cut off’ from poetry, particularly by the jobs that they need to sustain their daily lives and that they fear may quietly indoctrinate them into a contrary value system.” — Katy Waldman, The New Yorker, 2 Feb. 2026
Did You Know?
Indoctrinate means “brainwash” in most contexts today, but its meaning wasn’t always so negative. When the verb first appeared in English in the 17th century, it simply meant “to teach”—a meaning linked closely to its source, the Latin verb docēre, which also means “to teach.” (Other offspring of docēre include docile, doctor, document, and, of course, doctrine). By the 19th century, indoctrinate was being used in the sense of teaching someone to fully accept only the ideas, opinions, and beliefs of a particular group.
Merriam Webster Dictionary
