particularistic

American  

[per-tik-yuh-ler-ist-ik] / pərˌtɪk jə lərˈɪst ɪk /

adjective

1. reflecting or adhering to a political principle of leaving each member state of a federation or empire free to retain its laws and promote its own interests.

2. showing exclusive attention or devotion to one's own particular interests, party, academic specialty, etc.

3. Theology. reflecting or adhering to the belief that God chooses particular individuals, nations, etc., and not others.

4. Philosophy. reflecting or adhering to the belief in the importance of particulars over universals.

---

Other Word Forms

• particularistically
  adverb

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

particularistic

During Japan’s occupation of Southeast Asia in World War II, its troops went from being hailed as liberators to facing open revolt across the region after they failed to propagate their similarly particularistic culture.

From Salon ● Sep. 7, 2018

So keen was the particularistic spirit that not infrequently the various provinces of the kingdom were referred to in contemporary documents as "nations."

From The Governments of Europe by Frederic Austin Ogg

Contrasted with the particularistic uprising of 1477 it evinced the enormous growth, in the intervening century, of a national self-consciousness in the Seventeen Provinces.

From The Age of the Reformation by Preserved Smith

The reason for this may be partly found in the preparation of the soil for their seed by the medieval heresies, but still more in the strong particularistic spirit of that region.

From The Age of the Reformation by Preserved Smith

It was not by any means even a good example of Western particularistic feeling.

From The Winning of the West, Volume 4 Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 by Theodore Roosevelt