Meanings
proper noun
- A village and civil parish in South Cambridgeshire district, Cambridgeshire, England (OS grid ref TL3650).
- A place in the United States:
- A township in Otter Tail County, Minnesota.
- A town in Oswego County, New York, named after Orwell, Vermont.
- A village in Ashtabula County, Ohio, named after Orwell, Vermont.
- A town in Addison County, Vermont.
- An English surname (George Orwell took his name from the River Orwell).
Nineteen Eighty-Four was written in 1949. Its nightmarish fictional world is now 37 years in the past, so one might reasonably conclude that Orwell was far too pessimistic, but his great book was less a prediction than a warning, and above all an analysis of the totalitarian mentality.
2021 January 5, Peter Foster, “Peter Foster: Sustainable Newspeak by 2050”, in Financial Post
Origin
- Middle EnglishOrewelle
- EnglishOrwell
From Middle English Orewelle (attested in Chaucer).
More words from Middle English
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Arabic أَرْوَل
- أَرْوَل (ʔarwal)surname
Bulgarian О́руел
- О́руел (Óruel)surname
Chinese Mandarin 奧韋爾 /奥韦尔
- 奧韋爾 /奥韦尔 (Àowéi'ěr)surname
Japanese オーウェル
- オーウェル (Ōweru)surname
Russian О́руэлл
- О́руэлл (Óruell)surname
Vietnamese Ô-oen
- Ô-oensurname
Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
APA
Orwell. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Orwell
MLA
“Orwell.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Orwell. Accessed November 2, 2026.
Chicago
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Orwell,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Orwell.
Source: Orwell on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.