anti-Semitic

Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word anti-Semitic. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word anti-Semitic, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say anti-Semitic in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word anti-Semitic you have here. The definition of the word anti-Semitic will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofanti-Semitic, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
See also: antisemitic

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From anti- +‎ Semitic; calque of German antisemitisch, which was first used in 1860 by Jewish scholar Moritz Steinschneider.[1]

For more see anti-Semitism.

Pronunciation

Adjective

anti-Semitic (comparative more anti-Semitic, superlative most anti-Semitic)

  1. Relating to or exhibiting anti-Semitism.
    • 2014 August 20, “Why Jews are worried ”, in The New York Times:
      [W]hen a Hamas spokesman recently stood by his statement that Jews used the blood of non-Jewish children for their matzos – one of the oldest anti-Semitic canards around – European elites were largely silent.
    • 2022 November 19, Clarence Page, “Sometimes offensive comedy is just lazy laughs”, in Chicago Tribune:
      The Anti-Defamation League reported a dramatic increase in antisemitic incidents in 2021 in this country, with a total of 2,717 incidents of assault, harassment and vandalism reported to ADL, the highest number on record since the organization began tracking antisemitic incidents in 1979.

Usage notes

  • Though Semitic refers in a broader sense to all those who speak Semitic languages (including e.g. Arabs and Assyrians), the term anti-Semitism has historically referred to prejudice against Jews alone. To avoid the confusion of the misnomer, many scholars of the subject (such as Emil Fackenheim) now favor the unhyphenated antisemitic in order to emphasize that the word should be read as a single unified term, not as a meaningful root word–prefix combination.[2][3][4] (See Wikipedia's article on the etymology and usage of the term.) Use of the term to refer to prejudice against any Semitic people is rare and nonstandard, occurring chiefly in anti-Israel discourse.

Hypernyms

Coordinate terms

Derived terms

Translations

References

  1. ^ Falk, Avner (2008) Anti-Semitism: a History and Psychoanalysis of Contemporary Hatred, Westport, CT: Praeger, →ISBN
  2. ^ “Antisemitism. The Power of Myth (Facing History), Defining Antisemitism page 2 (PDF page 5)”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), 2007 August 2 (last accessed), archived from the original on 7 August 2007
  3. ^ “…the spelling ought to be antisemitism without the hyphen, dispelling the notion that there is an entity 'Semitism' which 'anti-Semitism' opposes.” -- Emil Fackenheim, Post-Holocaust Anti-Jewishness, Jewish Identity and the Centrality of Israel, in World Jewry and the State of Israel. ed. Moshe David, p11, n2.
  4. ^ “Antisemitism is not a scientific word, and it is entitled to neither a hyphen nor a capital.” Dr. James Parkes, 1953, quoted in Holocaust Almanac: David Irving's Hitler: Postscript