Germanism

American  

[jur-muh-niz-uhm] / ˈdʒɜr məˌnɪz əm /

noun

1. a usage, idiom, or other feature that is characteristic of the German language.

2. a custom, manner, mode of thought, action, etc., that is characteristic of the German people.

3. extreme partiality for or attachment to Germany, Germans, or German customs, manners, etc.

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Germanism British  

/ ˈdʒɜːməˌnɪzəm /

noun

1. a word or idiom borrowed from or modelled on German

2. a German custom, trait, practice, etc

3. attachment to or high regard for German customs, institutions, etc

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Other Word Forms

• anti-Germanism
  noun
• pro-Germanism
  noun

Etymology

Origin of Germanism

First recorded in 1605–15; German + -ism

Example Sentences

The story is most memorable in the passages where Germanism is horribly mocked by events, as Plievier evokes those last, insane days when thoroughness turned into madness, tables of organization into the outlines of farce.

From Time Magazine Archive

In a series of Advent sermons that packed St. Michael's Church he condemned the false choice that the Nazis had tried to place before Catholics�the choice between "Germanism" and disloyalty.

From Time Magazine Archive

The Jacobinism National movements. of the Vienna democracy was not really representative of any widespread opinion even in the German parts of Austria, while its loud-voiced Germanism excited the lively opposition of the other races.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" by Various

Humanism in a broad sense emerged from all the purposes of the war as the principle of the greater part of the world, as opposed to the idea of Germanism.

From The Psychology of Nations A Contribution to the Philosophy of History by Partridge, G.E.

Humanism is said to be opposed to rationalism, or to nationalism, or specialization, or paganism, or Germanism as a whole, humanism often being thought of as the spirit of Greek or Christian thought and philosophy.

From The Psychology of Nations A Contribution to the Philosophy of History by Partridge, G.E.