barbarism
Americannoun
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a barbarous or uncivilized state or condition.
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a barbarous act; something belonging to or befitting a barbarous condition.
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the use in a language of forms or constructions felt by some to be undesirably alien to the established standards of the language.
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such a form or construction.
Some people consider “complected” as a barbarism.
noun
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a brutal, coarse, or ignorant act
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the condition of being backward, coarse, or ignorant
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a substandard or erroneously constructed or derived word or expression; solecism
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any act or object that offends against accepted taste
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of barbarism
1570–80; < Latin barbarismus < Greek barbarismós foreign way of speaking. See barbarous, -ism
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:
When the German philosopher Theodor W. Adorno doubted the possibility of poetry after Auschwitz, Celan replied with the asperity of one who knew where barbarism had lodged.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026
The Human Rights Commission of the Rio state legislature will demand "explanations" of how the favela was turned into a "theater of war and barbarism," commission head Dani Monteiro told AFP on Tuesday.
From Barron's ● Oct. 29, 2025
It was taken in 1863 and reproduced across the North during the Civil War as an example of the barbarism of slavery.
From Slate ● Sep. 24, 2025
Isaac Geldhart, the imperious protagonist of Jon Robin Baitz’s “The Substance of Fire,” is waging a losing battle against the forces of cultural barbarism.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 16, 2024
Compared to the other tragedies, which were dominated by recognizable principles of justice no matter how harsh, it was a triumph of barbarism over reason: dark, chaotic, inexplicable.
From "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt
Did/do they really believe they help patients with such barbarisms?
From Scientific American ● May 16, 2012
A big problem for me as a children's football coach, however, is that these cliches and verbal barbarisms are all too often directed at children.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 31, 2011
His writings have charged the West with soulless materialism and his fellow Africans with barbarisms and corruption.
From Time Magazine Archive
In an address at Harvard University, Secretary of State George Shultz lamented that "the day has not yet arrived when terrorism has taken its place among other vanquished barbarisms of our time."
From Time Magazine Archive
These barbarisms were quite common, at least in the East of Germany, after 1650, especially in Moravia, Bohemia, and Silesia.
From Pictures of German Life in the XVIIIth and XIXth Centuries, Vol. I. by Freytag, Gustav
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.
