Protestant ethic

American  

noun

1. work ethic.

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Etymology

Origin of Protestant ethic

First recorded in 1925–30

Example Sentences

They rode to work in Rolls-Royces and adhered to a Protestant ethic of noblesse oblige.

From The Wall Street Journal

With that introduction to Blues music, Mr. Coogler exposed how the Protestant ethic placed upon African Americans manufactured a struggle within Black folk to accept that music is the tool that announces our secular struggles while declaring our spiritual strivings simultaneously, to secure our humanity—through the conflict of a preacher father and his Blues playing son.

From Salon

Ever since German sociologist Max Weber penned his classic 1905 book "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism," the Western World has accepted that Calvinist-influenced societies tend to associate hard work with both virtue and material success.

From Salon

American capitalism has come a long way since Max Weber, roughly 120 years ago, argued that it epitomized a “Protestant ethic,” which sanctified savings, investment and other productivity-enhancing deferrals of gratification.

From Washington Post

Then, summoning the underdog spirit of Rocky Balboa and the Protestant ethic of Max Weber, he says: “I don’t forget those steps that it took for me to get here. So even though I got a family and I got all these commercials and these endorsements, I don’t forget the thing that makes all of those things possible. Which is the work, the discipline.”

From New York Times