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-ism. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
-ism, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
-ism in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
-ism you have here. The definition of the word
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English
Etymology
Ultimately from Ancient Greek -ισμός (-ismós), a suffix that forms abstract nouns of action, state, condition, doctrine, from stem of verbs in -ίζειν (-ízein) (whence English -ize). Doublet of -ismus.
Many English nouns in -ism are loans of Greek nouns in -ισμός (-ismós), often via Latin and French, such as Judaism, a learned English formation from Latin attested from c. 1500 and ultimately from Ancient Greek Ἰουδαϊσμός (Ioudaïsmós). In Late Latin, the -ismus suffix became the ordinary ending for names of religions and ecclesiastical or philosophical systems or schools of thought, thus chrīstiānismus (whence 16th c. Christianism) in Tertullian, a trend continued in Medieval Latin, with e.g. pāgānismus attested by the 8th century. From the 16th century, such formations became very common in English, until the early 18th century mostly restricted to either root words of Greek or Latin origin (heroism, patriotism) or proper names (Calvinism, Lutheranism).
Productivity from root words with evidently non-Latin and non-Greek origin dates to the late 18th century (e.g. blackguardism). Reflecting this productivity, use of ism as a standalone noun is attested in Edward Pettit (1680) and becomes common from the mid-18th century. The narrowed sense of forming terms for ideologies based on the belief of superiority is based on coinages such as racism (1932) or sexism (1936) and productive since the 1970s.
Pronunciation
Suffix
-ism
- Used to form nouns of action, process, or result based on the accompanying verb ending in -ise or -ize.
- baptism (1300), aphorism (1528), criticism (1607), magnetism (1616)
- Used to form the name of a school of thought, system, or theory based on the name of its subject or object or alternatively on the name of its founder (When de-capitalized, these overlap with the generic "doctrines" sense below, e.g. Liberalism vs. liberalism.)
- Lutheranism (1560), Calvinism (1570), Protestantism (1606), Congregationalism (1716), Mohammedanism (1815),: Palamism (1949)
- Used to form names of a tendency of action, behaviour, condition, opinion, or state belonging to a class or group of persons, or the result of a doctrine, ideology, or principle or lack thereof.
- atheism (1587), ruffianism (1589), giantism (1639), fanaticism (1652), theism (1678), religionism (1706), patriotism (1716), heroism (1717), despotism (1728), old-maidism (1776), capitalism (1792), nationism (1798), romanticism (1803), conservatism (1832), sexualism (1842), vegetarianism (1848), externalism (1856), young-ladyism (1869), opportunism (1870), blackguardism (1875), jingoism (1878), feminism (1895), dwarfism (1895)
1990, Stephen King, The Moving Finger:Howard didn't care much for beer, but that night he helped himself to three cans of Vi's new find nevertheless. Vi commented on it, said that if she had known he was going to like it that much, she would have stopped by the drugstore and gotten him an IV hookup. Another time-honored Vi-ism.
- Used to form countable nouns indicating a peculiarity or characteristic of language
- Atticism (1612), Gallicism (1656), archaism (1709), Americanism (1781), colloquialism (1834), newspaperism (1838), Shakespearianism (1886)
- Used to form names of ideologies expressing belief in the superiority of a certain class within the concept expressed by the root word, or a pattern of behavior or a social norm that benefits members of the group indicated by the root word. (Based on a late 20th-century narrowing of the "terms for a doctrine" sense.)
- racism (1932), sexism (1936), classism (1971), speciesism (1975), heterosexism (1979), ableism (1981)
- (medicine) Used to form names of conditions (syndromes, diseases, disorders, defects, addictions) and therapeutical methods or doctrines.
- aleydigism, daturism, senilism, teratism, cocainism, climatism, humorism
Derived terms
Translations
a principle, belief or movement
- Afrikaans: -isme
- Albanian: -im, -izëm m
- Arabic: ـِيَّة (-iyya)
- Aragonese: -ismo m
- Armenian: -իզմ (-izm)
- Asturian: -ismu (ast) m
- Azerbaijani: -izm
- Basque: -ismo (eu) inan
- Belarusian: -і́зм m (-ízm), -ы́зм m (-ýzm)
- Bengali: বাদ (bn) (bad)
- Bulgarian: -и́зъм m (-ízǎm)
- Burmese: ဝါဒ (my) (wada.)
- Catalan: -isme (ca) m
- Chinese:
- Mandarin: -主義 / -主义 (zh) (-zhǔyì)
- Czech: -ismus (cs) m
- Danish: -isme (da) c
- Dutch: -isme (nl) n
- Esperanto: -o (eo), -ismo (eo)
- Estonian: -ism (et)
- Faroese: -isma f
- Finnish: -ismi (fi)
- French: -isme (fr) m
- Galician: -ismo (gl) m
- Georgian: -იზმი (-izmi)
- German: -ismus (de) m
- Alemannic German: -ismus m
- Greek: -ισμός (el) m (-ismós)
- Hebrew: ־יזם m (izm)
- Hindi: -वाद (hi) m (-vād)
- Hungarian: -izmus (hu)
- Icelandic: -stefna f; -ismi m, -ismus m (rare)
- Indonesian: -isme (id)
- Interlingua: -ismo
- Italian: -ismo (it) m
- Japanese: -主義 (ja) (-しゅぎ, -shugi), (loanwords, vowel "i" can be merged into kana of the previous consonant) -イズム (ja) (-izumu), 教 (ja) (きょう, -kyō) (religion)
- Khmer: -និយម (km) (-nĭymô), លទ្ធិ- (km) (lɔɔtthi)
- Korean: 주의(主義) (ko) (-juui), 이즘 (ko) (ijeum)
- Kurdish:
- Northern Kurdish: -îzm (ku)
- Ladino: -izmo
- Lao: ລັດທິ- (lo) (lat thi-), -ນິຍົມ (-ni nyom)
- Latin: -ismus m, -isma n
- Latvian: -isms m
- Lithuanian: -izmas m
- Macedonian: -и́зам m (-ízam)
- Malay: -isme (ms)
- Maltese: -iżmu m
- Norman: -isme m
- Norwegian:
- Bokmål: -isme (no) m
- Nynorsk: -isme m
- Occitan: -isme m
- Persian: ـیسم (-ism), گرایی (fa) (gerâi), پرستی (fa) (parasti)
- Polish: -yzm (pl) m, -izm (pl) m
- Portuguese: -ismo (pt) m
- Punjabi: -ਵਾਦ m (-vād)
- Romanian: -ism (ro) n
- Cyrillic: -исм n (-ism)
- Russian: -и́зм (ru) m (-ízm)
- Serbo-Croatian:
- Cyrillic: -изам m
- Roman: -izam m
- Sicilian: -ìsima f, -ìsimu m, -ismu (scn) (borrowed from Italian)
- Slovak: -izmus m
- Slovene: -izem m
- Spanish: -ismo (es) m
- Swedish: -ism (sv) c
- Thai: ลัทธิ- (th) (láttí-), -นิยม (th)
- Tagalog: -ismo
- Turkish: -izm (tr)
- Ukrainian: -і́зм m (-ízm), -и́зм m (-ýzm)
- Vietnamese: chủ nghĩa- (vi) (主義-)
- Volapük: -im (vo)
- Walloon: -isse (wa)
- Welsh: -aeth (cy) f, -iaeth (cy) f
- Yiddish: ־יזם m (-izm)
- Zazaki: -izm
- Zhuang: -cujyi
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Translations to be checked
References
- Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. "-ism, suffix".
Anagrams
Romanian
- -исм (-ism) — Moldovan Cyrillic spelling
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin -ismus, French -isme, ultimately from Ancient Greek -ισμός (-ismós).
Pronunciation
Suffix
-ism n (plural -isme)
- -ism (indicates a belief or principle)
- creștin (“Christian”) + -ism → creștinism (“Christianity”)
- anarhie (“anarchy”) + -ism → anarhism (“anarchism”)
Declension
Derived terms
Swedish
Etymology
Borrowed from French -isme.
Pronunciation
Suffix
-ism c
- -ism
- kommunism ― communism
- kannibalism ― canibalism
- surrealism ― surrealism
Declension
Derived terms
Anagrams