Skip to main content
primary censorship

primary censorship

9.1
Military officers check soldiers' personal letters and messages for secret information
  • noun
  • Jargon
translation icon : censura primaria
  • During the war, primary censorship ensured soldiers' letters did not disclose sensitive information.

Examples

  • His letter home was delayed due to primary censorship procedures.

  • The military implemented primary censorship to control information flow.

  • All personal mail was subject to primary censorship by the designated officers in the unit.

  • Many soldiers experienced primary censorship during their deployment.

  • All personal mail was subject to primary censorship by the designated officers in the unit.

  • During the war, primary censorship ensured soldiers' letters did not disclose sensitive information.

  • His letter home was delayed due to primary censorship procedures.

Synonyms

armed forces censorship
vsprimary censorship
8.6

The reading and blocking of letters and messages sent to or from soldiers by military leaders

is carried out locally by unit personnel on members rather than by higher authorities

Surface Forms

Morphology

primary + censorship

The noun phrase is partially compositional: a learner who knows 'primary' and 'censorship' can infer this is a particular type or stage of censorship (i.e., a kind of censorship). However, the precise, technical sense — censorship performed by military unit personnel on members' personal communications — is domain-specific and not directly derivable from the constituent meanings alone, so the expression is only partly transparent to a B1 learner.

Etymology

Primary censorship comes from the simple idea that officers in a unit did the primary or 'first' check of soldiers' personal mail. They opened and read letters and removed any dangerous details, so the phrase means 'censorship' done by people inside the unit on personal mail.