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.
Gulag in British English
(ˈɡuːlæɡ)
noun
1.
(formerly) the central administrative department of the Soviet security service, established in 1930, responsible for maintaining prisons and forced labour camps
2. (not capital)
any system used to silence dissents
Word origin
C20: from Russian G(lavnoye) U(pravleniye Ispravitelno-Trudovykh) Lag(erei) Main Administration for Corrective Labour Camps
gulag in American English
(ˈguˌlɑg; ˈguˌlæg)
noun
1. [alsoG-]
the system of prisons and labor camps, esp. for political prisoners, in the Soviet Union
, with the
2.
such a prison or forced-labor camp, as in the Soviet Union
3.
any place or situation regarded as like such a prison
Word origin
< Russ acronym for G(lavnoe) u(pravlenie ispravitel'no-trudovykh) lag(erei), Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps: term popularized by The Gulag Archipelago by A. Solzhenitsyn
Examples of 'Gulag' in a sentence
Gulag
Likewise, the survivors of the gulag have been largely hidden from our view.
Times, Sunday Times (2010)
Perhaps this was a long-term reaction to the deprivation that he suffered during his twenties in a gulag labour camp.
Times, Sunday Times (2016)
That's what they want to know in the psychiatric hospitals and the prison camps of the Gulag.