philistine
Americannoun
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(sometimes initial capital letter) a person who is lacking in or hostile or smugly indifferent to cultural values, intellectual pursuits, aesthetic refinement, etc., or is contentedly commonplace in ideas and tastes.
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(initial capital letter) a native or inhabitant of ancient Philistia.
adjective
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(sometimes initial capital letter) lacking in or hostile to culture.
- Synonyms:
- lowbrow
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smugly commonplace or conventional.
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(initial capital letter) of or belonging to the ancient Philistines.
noun
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a person who is unreceptive to or hostile towards culture, the arts, etc; a smug boorish person
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a member of the non-Semitic people who inhabited ancient Philistia
adjective
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(sometimes not capital) boorishly uncultured
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of or relating to the ancient Philistines
Other Word Forms
- Philistinism noun
- philistinism noun
Etymology
Origin of philistine
1350–1400; Middle English < Late Latin Philistīnī (plural) < Late Greek Philistînoi < Hebrew pəlishtīm
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.
With this in mind, it’s tempting to read “Wool” as straight-up satire, focusing as it does on an ingenious but eccentric writer pitched against a philistine publisher.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 30, 2022
And the customers at the other end: philistine Britons, mainly, who drank the stuff with sugar and milk and let it stew in the pot for hours.
From New York Times • Oct. 8, 2019
It ill behoves either him or Bruckner to try to frame this as evidence of a vindictive philistine world.
From The Guardian • Sep. 1, 2019
QT understands instinctively what Nabokov meant in his postscript to “Lolita”: “There is nothing more exhilarating than philistine vulgarity.”
From Salon • Aug. 17, 2019
The Jerry philistine proceeded to wad everything I could remember of “Tam o’Shanter” into balls of wastepaper.
From "Code Name Verity" by Elizabeth Wein
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.
