1950 Manch. Guardian 3 Jan. 6/7 A school teacher..who was summoned to a ‘brain-wash’ before a large audience partly consisting of his pupils.

1971 Jrnl. Southern Hist. 37 295 She conveys the impression that the cult of ladyhood might have been something of a brainwash to keep women submissive.

1995 Scotsman (Nexis) 5 June 16 Their house was smashed, they were sent to the country to work the fields, as a ‘brainwash’.

2002 T. Gitlin Media Unlimited iii. 138 The brainwash—not the compressed, nightmarish, high-intensity reprogramming made popular in movies,..but a prolonged marinating that is unobtrusive moment-to-moment yet cumulative.

1951 Publishers' Weekly 8 Sept. 888 Brain-Washing in Red China... Describes in detail how the communists are ‘brain washing’ the minds of educated Chinese.

1953 Sat. Evening Post 31 Oct. 10/1 The anticommunist soldiers..may be blackmailed or brain-washed or third-degreed.

1955 Harper's Mag. July 16 On this subject—and others—the Texans have brain-washed themselves so thoroughly [etc.].

1993 E. Perkins Not her Real Name (1996) 42 She wonders if she's been kidnapped by the FBI and brainwashed as a sleeper.

2007 M. K. Booker From Box Office to Ballot Box iii. 67 The entire film..purports to reveal the shocking tactics of the Communist Party as it attempts to ensnare unsuspecting innocents, then to brainwash them into sharing its devotion to atheism and totalitarianism.

1951 E. Hunter Brain-washing in Red China 286 Whether the secretary read the book through or was given his version by a safe, brain-washed source, was not told in the lesson.

1968 M. Woodhouse Rock Baby viii. 83 There was something attractive, in an off-beat, screwy sort of way, about the idea of psycho-analysing a brain-washed robot.

2001 Cult Times Feb. 66/4 Homer is given a pamphlet by the Movementarians and decides to join their sect. Soon, Bart and Lisa have joined, and Marge is determined to deprogram her brainwashed family.

1952 Times 26 May 41/1 Ai Tze-chi was Red China's chief indoctrinator or, as he was generally called, Brainwasher No 1.

1996 Independent 13 Mar. 15/4 Dangerous fruitcakes, mind-bending brain-washers and Gypsy Lee palmists can all set out brass plates and acquire handsome phoney initials.

2004 K. Taylor Brainwashing i. i. 10 Intentional behaviour on the part of the brainwasher is part of the essence of brainwashing.