Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Demagoguery.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The practices and principles of a demagogue; a pandering to the multitude for selfish ends.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The practices of a demagogue.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The practices and principles of a demagogue; a pandering to the multitude for selfish ends.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • "If Senators want to insist on a piece of what I call demagogism, by keeping a small stamp tax on playing cards, I am perfectly willing that they should do so.

    Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet An Autobiography. John Sherman

  • WHEREAS, in 1928, the War Department of the United States defined democracy in Training Manual No. 2000 – 25 as a “government of the masses” which “[r] esults in mobocracy,” communistic attitudes to property rights, “demagogism, ... agitation, discontent, [and] anarchy”; ...

    The Volokh Conspiracy » More on the Republic vs. Democracy Debate 2010

  • WHEREAS, in 1928, the War Department of the United States defined democracy in Training Manual No. 2000–25 as a “government of the masses” which “[r]esults in mobocracy,” communistic attitudes to property rights, “demagogism, ... agitation, discontent, [and] anarchy”;...

    The Volokh Conspiracy » More on the Republic vs. Democracy Debate 2010

  • By the poverty and ignorance of his people the Negro lawyer or doctor was pushed toward quackery and demagogism, and by the criticism of the other world toward an elaborate preparation that overfitted him for his lowly tasks.

    Strivings of the Negro People 1969

  • The result begins to be alarming -- enormous taxation, purchasable votes, demagogism, -- all these alarm the more thoughtful, and we are not yet sure of the end.

    Debate on Woman Suffrage in the Senate of the United States, 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, and January 25, 1887 Various

  • In some instances, too, the desire for popularity and for future advancement at the hands of friends and neighbors introduced a spirit of demagogism hurtful in the extreme.

    Four Years in Rebel Capitals An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death T. C. DeLeon

  • Hence Pythagoras and his disciples, though they were vegetable-eaters, eschewed the bean as an article of diet, from its association with politics, demagogism, and ochlocracy.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 Various

  • The _popular_ free discussion of affairs of the last degree of complication, religious and state affairs, except during the _crisis_ period of revolution, only renders that worst of despotisms, anarchy, chronic; it seats in the social organism that political gangrene, demagogism, which has always hitherto sooner or later required the cauterization of military despotism in order to save even civilization.

    The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, March, 1880 Various

  • The spirit of conciliation and justice, which has happily influenced the action of leading English and French Canadian statesmen in the administration of public affairs, has been so far successful in repressing the spirit of passion and demagogism which has exhibited itself at certain political crises, and in bringing the two nationalities into harmony with each other.

    Canada J. G. Bourinot

  • British people, who were disgusted with the arrogance of some of the governing class, and discontented with the methods of government, they were gradually alienated by the demagogism of the French Canadian majority, who did not hesitate to profess their desire to make French

    Canada J. G. Bourinot

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