/sah"miz daht'/ ; Russ. /seuh myiz daht"/ , n.
1. a clandestine publishing system within the Soviet Union, by which forbidden or unpublishable literature was reproduced and circulated privately.
2. a work or periodical circulated by this system.
[ 1965-70; samizdát, equiv. to sam ( o )- self- + izdát ( el'stvo ) publishing agency; coined as a jocular allusion to the compound names of official Soviet publishing organs, e.g., Gosizdát for Gosudárstvennoe izdátel'stvo State Publishing House ]