cosmopolitanism

[koz-muh-pol-i-tn-iz-uhm]

noun

1. the fact or condition of belonging to all the world and not just one part, or of being at home all over the world.

   My cosmopolitanism is the result of a childhood being towed around the world by a restless father.

   Most studies of Victorian literature focus on the cosmopolitanism and global reach of realism.

2. freedom from local or national ideas, values, and prejudices.

   Countries hosting this event will be able to join in a global celebration of cosmopolitanism and cultural diversity.

3. Botany, Zoology.,  the fact or property of being widely distributed over the globe.

   By more minutely tracing the relations of the freshwater fauna to those of the marine fauna, perhaps the cosmopolitanism of freshwater animals can be explained.

Other Word Forms

• noncosmopolitanism noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of cosmopolitanism¹

cosmopolitan ( def. ) + -ism ( def. )

Example Sentences

A concerted campaign has cropped up seemingly overnight to turn Mamdani’s victory into an opportunity to attack cosmopolitanism.

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The exhibition is divided into 12 conceptual sections: ownership, presence, distinction, disguise, freedom, champion, respectability, jook, heritage, beauty, cool and cosmopolitanism.

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For these residents, "cosmopolitanism" is a threat to their way of life; "sophistication" and "modernity" are not aspirations but forces seen as corrosive to a good Christian lifestyle.

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In the 1950s and ’60s, as the apartheid government enforced an increasingly brutal code of racial hierarchy, South African musicians, poets, artists, radical clergy and organizers found in this music a symbol of Black cosmopolitanism, interracial experimentation and free thought — all anathema to the regime.

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“It was seen as an affirmation of him in terms of his status as a leading Muslim politician, but also as an affirmation of London in terms of its diversity, its liberalism, its cosmopolitanism,” Diamond said.

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Related Words

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