"Great Filter" meaning in English

See Great Filter in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Proper name

Forms: the Great Filter [canonical]
Etymology: Coined by American economist Robin Hanson in 1996. Etymology templates: {{coin|en|Q2159779|in=1996|nobycat=1}} Coined by American economist Robin Hanson in 1996 Head templates: {{en-prop|def=1|head=Great Filter}} the Great Filter
  1. (exobiology) A barrier which prevents intelligent life from developing to a level where it can be detected across interstellar distances.
    Sense id: en-Great_Filter-en-name-GSD1leeM Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Entries with translation boxes, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Terms with French translations, Terms with Russian translations Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 49 51 Disambiguation of Entries with translation boxes: 47 53 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 45 55 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 46 54 Disambiguation of Terms with French translations: 48 52 Disambiguation of Terms with Russian translations: 47 53
  2. (exobiology) The hypothesis that such a barrier exists. Translations (Translations): grand filtre [masculine] (French), великий фильтр (velikij filʹtr) (Russian)
    Sense id: en-Great_Filter-en-name-eSKo7We7 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Entries with translation boxes, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Terms with French translations, Terms with Russian translations Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 49 51 Disambiguation of Entries with translation boxes: 47 53 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 45 55 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 46 54 Disambiguation of Terms with French translations: 48 52 Disambiguation of Terms with Russian translations: 47 53 Disambiguation of 'Translations': 43 57
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          "text": "While there are plenty of potential explanations and counterarguments for the Fermi paradox, one that has grabbed a lot of attention is known as the Great Filter - the idea that there is some sort of filter that prevents a civilization from becoming advanced enough to traverse the galaxy.",
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Download raw JSONL data for Great Filter meaning in English (3.1kB)

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-03-16 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-03-03 using wiktextract (bdd14c0 and 9d9a410). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.