phalanstery
Americannoun
-
phalansteries
plural
-
(in Fourierism)
-
the buildings occupied by a phalanx.
-
the community itself.
-
-
any similar association, or the buildings they occupy.
noun
-
-
buildings occupied by a phalanx
-
a community represented by a phalanx
-
-
any similar association or the buildings occupied by such an association
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of phalanstery
1840–50; < French phalanstère, blend of phalange phalanx and monastère monastery
Explanation
A phalanstery is a group of people living in a communal society, and it's also the name of a building where they live. A specific kind of utopian community, the phalanstery was first imagined by French philosopher Charles Fourier in the early 1800s. The French term, phalanstère, comes from phalanx, an ancient Greek military group, and monastery. The phalansteries, which later influenced buildings by architect Le Corbusier, were designed with communal kitchens, quiet rooms, libraries, and areas for doing carpentry, metal forging, and more. Work done here was intended to make the phalanstery self-sufficient.
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.
See Examples For:
Life in the big, three-story phalanstery was rigorous and simple, but intellectually stimulating.
From Time Magazine Archive
P. 242Ruskin did not want to found a phalanstery, or to imitate Robert Owen or the Shakers.
From The Life of John Ruskin by W. G. (William Gershom) Collingwood
The phalanstery and the familystery do not take this into account, or else they endeavour to supply this need by artificial groupings.
From The Conquest of Bread by Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin, Prince
Better the most heaven-storming or sky-scraping audacity of individualism than any attempt to transform New York into a Fourierist phalanstery or a model prison.
From America To-day, Observations and Reflections by William Archer
It is a kind of phalanstery which amuses us, and where mutual liberty is much better guaranteed than in that of the Fourierists...
From Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician — Complete by Frederick Niecks
With their socialist communities, workshops and phalansteries, they hoped to convert the world by good example.
From Time Magazine Archive
You can't look without dread at the photos and engravings of panopticons, meeting houses, commune buildings, phalansteries and other social-idealist architecture in the 19th century stretch of this show.
From Time Magazine Archive
In the United States, sixteen phalansteries of Fourierites, founded between 1840 and 1846, had all collapsed in 1855.
From Principles Of Political Economy by John J. (John Joseph) Lalor
Let us recall the fruitless attempts of the "phalansteries" in France, in Algeria, Brazil, and in the United States.
From Essay on the Creative Imagination by Albert Heyem Nachmen Baron
How keenly she would realize her own isolation in the joyous busy labouring community of our phalansteries!
From Strange Stories by Grant Allen
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.
