Word of the Day

: February 2, 2007

glasnost

noun GLAHZ-nohst

What It Means

: a Soviet policy permitting open discussion of political and social issues and freer dissemination of news and information

glasnost in Context

Yuri welcomed glasnost because he could finally publish the article he had written about poverty in Moscow.

Did You Know?

"Glasnost'" wasn't coined by former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, but he was responsible for catapulting the word into the international media and the English vocabulary. The term derives from the Russian adjective "glasnyi," which means "public" and which itself traces to "glas," a root meaning "voice." In Russian, "glasnost" was originally used (as long ago as the 18th century) in the general sense of "publicity," and the Oxford English Dictionary reports that V.I. Lenin used it in the context of freedom of information in the Soviet state. However, it wasn't until Gorbachev declared it a public policy in the mid-1980s that "glasnost" became widely known and used in English.