Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Action; process; practice: terrorism.
- n. Characteristic behavior or quality: heroism.
- n. State; condition; quality: pauperism.
- n. State or condition resulting from an excess of something specified: strychninism.
- n. Distinctive or characteristic trait: Latinism.
- n. Doctrine; theory; system of principles: pacifism.
- n. An attitude of prejudice against a given group: racism.
Wiktionary
- n. forming nouns on action or process or result based on the accompanying verb in -ize
- n. forming the name of a system, school of thought or theory based on the name of its subject or object or alternatively on the name of its founder ((when de-capitalized, these overlap with the generic "doctrines" sense below, e.g. Liberalism vs. liberalism):).
- n. a tendency of behaviour, action or opinion belonging to a class or group of persons; the result of a doctrine, ideology, principle, or lack thereof
- n. a peculiarity or characteristic of language
- n. an ideology expressing belief in the superiority of a certain class within the concept expressed by the root word ((based on a late 20th-century narrowing of the "terms for a doctrine" sense):)
- n. medicine A condition or syndrome caused by or associated with a specific type of organism
GNU Webster's 1913
- A suffix indicating an
act , aprocess , theresult of an act or a process , astate ; also, acharacteristic (as a theory, doctrine, idiom, etc.).
Etymologies
- Ultimately from either Ancient Greek -ισμός (-ismos), a suffix that forms abstract nouns of action, state, condition, doctrine; from stem of verbs in -ιζειν (-izein) (whence English -ize), or from the related suffix Ancient Greek -ισμα (-isma), which more specifically expressed a finished act or thing done. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English -isme, from Old French, from Latin -ismus, from Greek -ismos, n. suff. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Like most words that end in "-ism," multiculturalism as a policy divided people instead of building connections.”
The Huffington Post: Homa Sabet Tavangar: How to Save Multiculturalism
“But I had started to tell you about the company you had in rolling your eyes at the discovery of still another -ism, and one that perhaps seems utterly trivial, to boot.”
“It would be easy to wonder: is this what modern "moll"-ism looks like – cancelling Facebook, stopping Tweeting, stifling the modern confessional urge, to stand by your man, even if he isn't your man any more?”
The Guardian: David Cameron, shame on you, for this 'brave' attack on nurses | Barbara Ellen
“The slightly older faith tradition of Rastafari whose adherents prefer not to be referred to with "-ism" apparently crosses the line of what's protected under religious freedom.”
“Today's Republicans extol the virtues of freedom, as they simultaneously and occasionally promote "there ought to be a law"-ism.”
The Huffington Post: Robert Eisinger: Redefining Conservative Consistency
“He had become friends in Paris with André Breton, finding his once longed-for -ism.”
“Miró was, above all, desperate, in the spirit of the moment, to be part of an -ism, or, better, to create one.”
“Then adventuring became an -ism and lost even more respect.”
“These include prefixes, such as pre- or auto-, and suffixes, such as -ing, -tion, and -ism, that are meaningless on their own.”
“There is a rule about customers—an unwritten rule; unwritten because if it was ever committed to paper every lawyer in the country would spend their entire career successfully suing car dealerships for ageism, racism, sexism, fatism, and any other kind of -ism you care to mention.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘-ism’.
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Suffixes!! & affixes!! prefixes!! oh ...
suffixes, affixes, prefixes added onto words to explain the present/past/future happening.
-for fun-ness
add one to the begining/or ending of any word to make up your own. =)
ex: ...-ism, -ly, -ity, -ious, able, -istic, lovelify, junkiness, punkiness, weirdlier, slopperie, stimulatify and 19 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for -ism.
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