-ism
English
[edit]
Etymology
[edit]Etymology tree
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
[edit]- IPA(key): /-ɪzəm/, [ɪzm̩]
Audio (Southern England): (file)
Suffix
[edit]-ism (noun-forming suffix, countable and uncountable, plural -isms)
- Used to form nouns of action, process, or result based on the accompanying verb ending in -ise or -ize.
- 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.
- 2020, Ministry of Broadcast, Hitcents, Nintendo Switch, scene: game over:
- WE ARE EXPERIENCING BROADCAST NOOBISM
- 2021 January 19, Jennifer Hansler, Kylie Atwood and Nicole Gaouette, quoting Mike Pompeo, “Pompeo attacks multiculturalism, saying it is ‘not who America is’”, in CNN[1]:
- “Woke-ism, multiculturalism, all the -isms — they’re not who America is. They distort our glorious founding and what this country is all about. Our enemies stoke these divisions because they know they make us weaker,” he wrote Tuesday.
- 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)
- 2010, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, New York: Random House, →ISBN, page 136:
- Note that these sayings attributed to Yogi Berra might be apocryphal […] These sayings remain, however, quintessential Berraisms.
- 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.
Derived terms
[edit]Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]a principle, belief or movement
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
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References
[edit]- Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. "-ism, suffix".
Noun
[edit]-ism (plural -isms)
- Alternative form of ism (“ideology or form of discrimination ending in -ism”)
- 2013 September 24, Heather Kelly, “YouTube tries to fix its comments”, in CNN[2], archived from the original on 11 April 2016:
- YouTube comments are rough. They dabble in all forms of trolling, bullying, racism, sexism and other offensive -isms, interspersed with endless spurts of nonsensical chatter. Any thoughtful comments are typically lost in a roiling sea of “LOLs,” insults and spam.
- 2021 January 19, Jennifer Hansler, Kylie Atwood, Nicole Gaouette, quoting Mike Pompeo, “Pompeo attacks multiculturalism, saying it is ‘not who America is’”, in CNN[3], archived from the original on 10 December 2022:
- “Woke-ism, multiculturalism, all the -isms — they’re not who America is. They distort our glorious founding and what this country is all about. Our enemies stoke these divisions because they know they make us weaker,” he wrote Tuesday.
Anagrams
[edit]Romanian
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]- -исм (-ism) — Moldovan Cyrillic spelling
Etymology
[edit]Borrowed from Latin -ismus, French -isme, ultimately from Ancient Greek -ισμός (-ismós).
Pronunciation
[edit]Suffix
[edit]-ism n (plural -isme)
- -ism (indicates a belief or principle)
- creștin (“Christian”) + -ism → creștinism (“Christianity”)
- anarhie (“anarchy”) + -ism → anarhism (“anarchism”)
Declension
[edit]| singular | plural | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| indefinite | definite | indefinite | definite | ||
| nominative-accusative | -ism | -ismul | -isme | -ismele | |
| genitive-dative | -ism | -ismului | -isme | -ismelor | |
| vocative | -ismule | -ismelor | |||
Derived terms
[edit]Related terms
[edit]Swedish
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]Suffix
[edit]-ism c
- -ism
- kommunism ― communism
- kannibalism ― canibalism
- surrealism ― surrealism
Declension
[edit]| nominative | genitive | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| singular | indefinite | -ism | -isms |
| definite | -ismen | -ismens | |
| plural | indefinite | -ismer | -ismers |
| definite | -ismerna | -ismernas |
Derived terms
[edit]Related terms
[edit]Anagrams
[edit]Categories:
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from Proto-Hellenic
- English terms derived from Ancient Greek
- English doublets
- English terms derived from Late Latin
- English terms derived from Medieval Latin
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- English lemmas
- English suffixes
- English noun-forming suffixes
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with quotations
- en:Medicine
- English nouns
- English productive suffixes
- Romanian terms borrowed from Latin
- Romanian terms derived from Latin
- Romanian terms derived from French
- Romanian terms derived from Ancient Greek
- Romanian terms with IPA pronunciation
- Romanian lemmas
- Romanian suffixes
- Romanian noun-forming suffixes
- Romanian neuter suffixes
- Swedish terms borrowed from French
- Swedish terms derived from French
- Swedish terms with IPA pronunciation
- Swedish lemmas
- Swedish suffixes
- Swedish common-gender suffixes
- Swedish terms with usage examples