See spin doctor in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for spin doctor meaning in English (9.0kB)
{
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},
"expansion": "spin",
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{
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"1": "en",
"2": "doctor"
},
"expansion": "doctor",
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}
],
"etymology_text": "From spin + doctor. First used describing US politics, early 1980s.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "spin doctors",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
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"args": {},
"expansion": "spin doctor (plural spin doctors)",
"name": "en-noun"
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"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "topical",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Business",
"orig": "en:Business",
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"name": "People",
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],
"examples": [
{
"text": "Many believed that the reduction in public spending was a disaster but the spin doctors presented it as a triumph for lower taxation.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "1984 October 21, “The Debate and the Spin Doctors”, in The New York Times, →ISSN",
"text": "A dozen men in good suits and women in silk dresses will circulate smoothly among the reporters, spouting confident opinions. They won't be just press agents trying to impart a favorable spin to a routine release. They'll be the Spin Doctors, senior advisers to the candidates, and they'll be playing for very high stakes.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2000 December 3, Alexander Stille, “The Original Spin Doctor”, in The New York Times, →ISSN",
"text": "Now that the cold war has ended and political ideologies have been replaced by pollsters and spin doctors, Machiavelli's cleareyed assessments of power dynamics and pragmatic advantage are suddenly in vogue.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2008 February 19, Richard Norton-Taylor, quoting William Hague, “Iraq weapons dossier draft reveals role of 'spin doctor'”, in The Guardian",
"text": "William Hague, shadow foreign secretary, said the Williams document was \"further evidence that spin doctors, not intelligence analysts, were leading from the first in deciding what the British people were told about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction\".",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2013 October 31, Rowena Mason, quoting David Steel, “Lord Steel criticises culture of spin and tweeting in modern politics”, in The Guardian, →ISSN",
"text": "Lord Steel, the former Liberal leader, has launched a despairing attack on the prevalence of spin doctors in politics, noting that he is given \"daily outpourings of tweets to circulate\" and bombarded by email with \"lines to take\" on current issues.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A person employed to gloss over a poor public image (or present it in a better light) in business and politics, especially after unfavourable results have been achieved. A lobbyist; PR person."
],
"id": "en-spin_doctor-en-noun-zlnCkGJT",
"links": [
[
"business",
"business"
],
[
"politics",
"politics"
],
[
"employed",
"employed"
],
[
"gloss over",
"gloss over"
],
[
"better light",
"better light"
],
[
"unfavourable",
"unfavourable"
],
[
"lobbyist",
"lobbyist"
],
[
"PR",
"PR"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(business, politics) A person employed to gloss over a poor public image (or present it in a better light) in business and politics, especially after unfavourable results have been achieved. A lobbyist; PR person."
],
"related": [
{
"word": "spin machine"
},
{
"word": "spin control"
},
{
"word": "spin doctoring"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "spinmeister"
},
{
"word": "spinster"
},
{
"word": "spin merchant"
}
],
"topics": [
"business",
"government",
"politics"
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "da",
"lang": "Danish",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"common-gender"
],
"word": "spindoktor"
},
{
"code": "da",
"english": "official government term",
"lang": "Danish",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"common-gender"
],
"word": "særlig rådgiver"
},
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "spindoctor"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"word": "imagokonsultti"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"word": "PR-konsultti"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"word": "lobbari (lobbyist)"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "spin doctor"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "façonneur d’image"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "Imageberater"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine",
"pejorative"
],
"word": "Schönredner"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "Tatsachenbeschöniger"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "PR-Berater"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "Spindoktor"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "curatore di immagine"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "portavoce"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "lobbista"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "esperto di comunicazione"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "spin doktor"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "spin doctor"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "marqueteiro"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "polittexnolog",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "политтехнолог"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "asesor de imagen"
},
{
"code": "cy",
"lang": "Welsh",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "doctor areithiau"
},
{
"code": "cy",
"lang": "Welsh",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "sbinddoctor"
}
]
}
],
"word": "spin doctor"
}
{
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
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"2": "spin#English:_favourable comment or interpretation"
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"expansion": "spin",
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},
{
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"1": "en",
"2": "doctor"
},
"expansion": "doctor",
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}
],
"etymology_text": "From spin + doctor. First used describing US politics, early 1980s.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "spin doctors",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "spin doctoring",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
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},
{
"form": "spin doctored",
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"past"
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},
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}
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"head_templates": [
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"expansion": "spin doctor (third-person singular simple present spin doctors, present participle spin doctoring, simple past and past participle spin doctored)",
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],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [],
"derived": [
{
"word": "spin-doctored"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To generate spin (favourable interpretation or bias)."
],
"id": "en-spin_doctor-en-verb-iLcx6Pr9",
"links": [
[
"generate",
"generate"
],
[
"spin",
"spin#Noun"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, transitive) To generate spin (favourable interpretation or bias)."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"_dis1": "19 81",
"tags": [
"rare"
],
"word": "spindoctor"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"transitive"
]
}
],
"word": "spin doctor"
}
{
"categories": [
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"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
"English lemmas",
"English links with manual fragments",
"English multiword terms",
"English nouns",
"English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
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"etymology_templates": [
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"2": "spin#English:_favourable comment or interpretation"
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"2": "doctor"
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],
"etymology_text": "From spin + doctor. First used describing US politics, early 1980s.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "spin doctors",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "spin doctor (plural spin doctors)",
"name": "en-noun"
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],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"related": [
{
"word": "spin machine"
},
{
"word": "spin control"
},
{
"word": "spin doctoring"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English terms with quotations",
"English terms with usage examples",
"en:Business",
"en:Politics"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "Many believed that the reduction in public spending was a disaster but the spin doctors presented it as a triumph for lower taxation.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "1984 October 21, “The Debate and the Spin Doctors”, in The New York Times, →ISSN",
"text": "A dozen men in good suits and women in silk dresses will circulate smoothly among the reporters, spouting confident opinions. They won't be just press agents trying to impart a favorable spin to a routine release. They'll be the Spin Doctors, senior advisers to the candidates, and they'll be playing for very high stakes.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2000 December 3, Alexander Stille, “The Original Spin Doctor”, in The New York Times, →ISSN",
"text": "Now that the cold war has ended and political ideologies have been replaced by pollsters and spin doctors, Machiavelli's cleareyed assessments of power dynamics and pragmatic advantage are suddenly in vogue.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2008 February 19, Richard Norton-Taylor, quoting William Hague, “Iraq weapons dossier draft reveals role of 'spin doctor'”, in The Guardian",
"text": "William Hague, shadow foreign secretary, said the Williams document was \"further evidence that spin doctors, not intelligence analysts, were leading from the first in deciding what the British people were told about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction\".",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2013 October 31, Rowena Mason, quoting David Steel, “Lord Steel criticises culture of spin and tweeting in modern politics”, in The Guardian, →ISSN",
"text": "Lord Steel, the former Liberal leader, has launched a despairing attack on the prevalence of spin doctors in politics, noting that he is given \"daily outpourings of tweets to circulate\" and bombarded by email with \"lines to take\" on current issues.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A person employed to gloss over a poor public image (or present it in a better light) in business and politics, especially after unfavourable results have been achieved. A lobbyist; PR person."
],
"links": [
[
"business",
"business"
],
[
"politics",
"politics"
],
[
"employed",
"employed"
],
[
"gloss over",
"gloss over"
],
[
"better light",
"better light"
],
[
"unfavourable",
"unfavourable"
],
[
"lobbyist",
"lobbyist"
],
[
"PR",
"PR"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(business, politics) A person employed to gloss over a poor public image (or present it in a better light) in business and politics, especially after unfavourable results have been achieved. A lobbyist; PR person."
],
"topics": [
"business",
"government",
"politics"
]
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "spinmeister"
},
{
"word": "spinster"
},
{
"word": "spin merchant"
},
{
"tags": [
"rare"
],
"word": "spindoctor"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "da",
"lang": "Danish",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"common-gender"
],
"word": "spindoktor"
},
{
"code": "da",
"english": "official government term",
"lang": "Danish",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"common-gender"
],
"word": "særlig rådgiver"
},
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "spindoctor"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"word": "imagokonsultti"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"word": "PR-konsultti"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"word": "lobbari (lobbyist)"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "spin doctor"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "façonneur d’image"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "Imageberater"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine",
"pejorative"
],
"word": "Schönredner"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "Tatsachenbeschöniger"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "PR-Berater"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "Spindoktor"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "curatore di immagine"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "portavoce"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "lobbista"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "esperto di comunicazione"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "spin doktor"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "spin doctor"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "marqueteiro"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "polittexnolog",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "политтехнолог"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "asesor de imagen"
},
{
"code": "cy",
"lang": "Welsh",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "doctor areithiau"
},
{
"code": "cy",
"lang": "Welsh",
"sense": "person hired to improve public image",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "sbinddoctor"
}
],
"word": "spin doctor"
}
{
"categories": [
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"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
"English lemmas",
"English links with manual fragments",
"English multiword terms",
"English nouns",
"English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
"English verbs",
"en:People"
],
"derived": [
{
"word": "spin-doctored"
}
],
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "spin#English:_favourable comment or interpretation"
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{
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"2": "doctor"
},
"expansion": "doctor",
"name": "m"
}
],
"etymology_text": "From spin + doctor. First used describing US politics, early 1980s.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "spin doctors",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "spin doctoring",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "spin doctored",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "spin doctored",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "spin doctor (third-person singular simple present spin doctors, present participle spin doctoring, simple past and past participle spin doctored)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English idioms",
"English transitive verbs"
],
"glosses": [
"To generate spin (favourable interpretation or bias)."
],
"links": [
[
"generate",
"generate"
],
[
"spin",
"spin#Noun"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, transitive) To generate spin (favourable interpretation or bias)."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"transitive"
]
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"tags": [
"rare"
],
"word": "spindoctor"
}
],
"word": "spin doctor"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.