| 释义 |
police state
A state regulated by means of a national police force having secret supervision and control of the activities of citizens. Also attrib.
1865Times 6 Sept. 10/3 Austria was long known on the Continent as the ‘police State’, and..M. von Weiss will again obtain for her that unenviable title. 1896B. Russell German Social Democracy iv. 114 This infamous Law, the crowning endeavour of the enlightened police state. 1938New Statesman 15 Jan. 74/1 Meanwhile, the atmosphere of the ‘police state’ is already with us. 1939War Illustr. 28 Oct. 217/1 Spies are everywhere; indeed, Germany is the modern exemplification of the ‘police state’ in action. 1947Life 7 June 37/1 They have failed in France and Italy because the peoples have had a chance to show their preference for Western democracy over a police state. 1950G. B. Shaw Farfetched Fables 79 In the imagination of our amateur politician England is a Utopia in which everything and everybody is ‘free’ and all other countries ‘police States’. I, being Irish, know better. 1959Listener 8 Oct. 573/2 The Devlin Commission reported that Nyasaland has been turned into a ‘police state’. 1967Coulthard & Smith in Wills & Yearsley Handbk. Management Technol. 197 Short of introducing a police-state, in which people are directed to jobs and change them only with State approval, we must accept a degree of labour turnover as necessary and desirable. 1973Times 12 Apr. 19/4 That Rhodesia is a police state, where the rights of individuals, the rule of law and the right to speak or report the truth count for nothing, is a fact for which there has long been ample evidence. 1975Times 11 Jan. 12/6 A campaign to spot the terrorists before they act..requires measures which smack of the police state. |