barbarism
Americannoun
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a barbarous or uncivilized state or condition.
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a barbarous act; something belonging to or befitting a barbarous condition.
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the use in a language of forms or constructions felt by some to be undesirably alien to the established standards of the language.
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such a form or construction.
Some people consider “complected” as a barbarism.
noun
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a brutal, coarse, or ignorant act
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the condition of being backward, coarse, or ignorant
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a substandard or erroneously constructed or derived word or expression; solecism
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any act or object that offends against accepted taste
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of barbarism
1570–80; < Latin barbarismus < Greek barbarismós foreign way of speaking. See barbarous, -ism
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Thomas Jefferson, a brilliant creature of the Enlightenment, once wrote, "Barbarism has . . . been receding before the steady step of amelioration; and will in time, I trust, disappear from the earth."
From Time Magazine Archive
In Barbarism with a Human Face, for example, Bernard-Henri Levy demanded that French radicals confront the idea that Marxism was inherently corrupt.
From Time Magazine Archive
Barbarism is ever impending over the civilized world.
From Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) The Turks in Their Relation to Europe; Marcus Tullius Cicero; Apollonius of Tyana; Primitive Christianity by Newman, John Henry
This Rebellion is simply the insurrection of Barbarism against Civilization.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 70, August, 1863 by Various
Barbarism means the worship of Nature; and in recent poetry, science, and philosophy there has been too much of the worship of Nature.
From All Things Considered by Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
