Our word today is also borrowed from Russian where it began it’s journey as an acronym for the department of correctional service - the service mandated with the responsibility of seeing “dissidents” and other enemies of the state served their punishment in the harshest of conditions. today it refers to any hard condition prison anywhere in the world, particularly for political and other prisoners of conscience.
Word Frequency
[SIZE=6]gulag[/SIZE]
(guːlæg )
Word forms: plural gulags
countable noun
A gulag is a prison camp where conditions are extremely bad and the prisoners are forced to work very hard. The name gulag comes from the prison camps in the former Soviet Union.
COBUILD Advanced English Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers
Word Frequency
[SIZE=6]Gulag in British[/SIZE]
(ˈɡuːlæɡ )
noun
1.
(formerly) the central administrative department of the Sovietsecurity service, established in 1930, responsible for maintainingprisons and forced labour camps
2. (not capital)
any system used to silence dissents
Collins English Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers
Word origin of ‘Gulag’
C20: from Russian G(lavnoye) U(pravleniye Ispravitelno-Trudovykh) Lag(erei) Main Administration for Corrective Labour Camps
Word Frequency
[SIZE=6]gulag in American[/SIZE]
(ˈguˌlɑg ; go̅oˈlägˌ; ˈguˌlæg ; go̅oˈlagˌ)
noun
- [also G-]
the system of prisons and labor camps, esp. for political prisoners, in the Soviet Union
, with the
such a prison or forced-labor camp, as in the Soviet Union
3.
any place or situation regarded as like such a prison
