Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A word or pronunciation that distinguishes people of one group or class from those of another.
- n. A word or phrase identified with a particular group or cause; a catchword.
- n. A commonplace saying or idea.
- n. A custom or practice that betrays one as an outsider.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A Hebrew word, meaning ‘ear of corn’ or ‘stream,’ used by Jephthah, one of the judges of Israel, as a test-word by which to distinguish the fleeing Ephraimites (who could not pronounce the sh in shibboleth) from his own men, the Gileadites (Judges xii. 4–6); hence, a test-word, or the watchword or pet phrase of a party, sect, or school. Similarly, during the massacre of the Sicilian Vespers, the French be trayed their nationality by inability to pronounce correctly the Italian word ciceri.
Wiktionary
- n. A word, especially seen as a test, to distinguish someone as belonging to a particular nation, class, profession etc.
- n. A common or longstanding belief, custom, or catchphrase associated with a particular group, especially one with little current meaning or truth.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A word which was made the criterion by which to distinguish the Ephraimites from the Gileadites. The Ephraimites, not being able to pronounce
sh , called the wordsibboleth . See Judges xii. - n. Also used in an extended sense.
- n. Hence, the criterion, test, or watchword of a party; a party cry or pet phrase.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a favorite saying of a sect or political group
- n. a manner of speaking that is distinctive of a particular group of people
Etymologies
- Ultimately from Hebrew šibbōlet, torrent of water, from the use of this word to distinguish one tribe from another that pronounced it sibbōlet (Judges 12:4-6).
Examples
“In English the Hebrew word shibboleth now sometimes refers to clichés or tired slogans.”
“People who want to make this about Joe Wilson have their official Faux News blinders on (you can tell when they repeat catch phrases like “criminilization of politics” – that’s what you call a shibboleth).”
Think Progress » White House Responds To Criticism of Bush’s Leak With More Leaks
““A shibboleth is a test—a way to separate da wheat from da chaff that's as old as the Bible, but as new as the latest trend in men's fashions,” Gus says.”
“The notion that there is a global conspiracy by professional scientists to falsify results in order to get more research money is, to borrow Quiggen's words about birtherism, "a shibboleth, that is, an affirmation that marks the speaker as a member of their community or tribe.”
The Huffington Post: David Roberts: What We Have and Haven't Learned From 'Climategate'
“A mere tax "shibboleth", he said, at a time when real reform would focus on taxing unearned wealth and pollution.”
The Guardian: Nick Clegg's Hugo Young Lecture thesis has a striking weakness
“Yes it does, unless it's being used as some kind of shibboleth for the cognoscenti rather than an adult question with real impact on real policy and real lives.”
“I'm just going to roll the word "shibboleth" around in my mouth for a while.”
“That was the stuff you used to put in West Wing episodes, you know, drizzled around Sheen wandering the halls, endlessly repeating "shibboleth" or whatever?”
“Perhaps it is a kind of shibboleth, by which the faithful can be distinguished.”
“shibboleth" with an "h," still just as in politics the party machine becomes God, crushing truth and righteousness before it, so the church machine is only too often a Juggernaut's car, destroying all faith in”
What the Church Means to Me A Frank Confession and a Friendly Estimate by an Insider
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘shibboleth’.
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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H-Bombs Away
Words or phrasesh that contain an "h" insherted after an "s". To shee what kind of nonshense, if any, enshues.
shtop it!, shums, mishinterpret, cashtrate, cashtration, raishin, pishton, shinus, menshuration, pasha doble, shilviculture, shelf examination and 157 more...
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refriedswanforge's list
codswallop, dollop, ticker, shawarmageddon, shibboleth, zeitgeist, scrod, tomfoolery, idiom, rollock, rollicking, roger and 2 more...
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Cryptography, etc.
Codes, ciphers, and other words related to secret ways of communicating. See also Keeping Secrets, a list by oroboros.
cryptography, steganography, code, cipher, substitution cipher, secret code, decoder ring, encryption, code word, code name, password, atbash and 13 more...
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There's a word for it
catkin, pastiche, badonkadonk, biome, omphaloscopy, pogonophobia, reptation, anathema, xyst, commodify, commoditize, monetize and 24 more...
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PMPope's list
Words for Words
asterix, garrulous, ampersand, exclaimation, ponderous, fickle, finale, etheric, solar, astronomic, plummeting, fogline and 33 more...
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Its a Stretch
pandiculation, persiflage, quixotic, abjure, non sequitur, ouevre, addlepated, shibboleth, bloviate, mundicidious, illaqueate, frigorific and 13 more...
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truman486's list
Masterbatory Aids
ensorcelled, scintilla, maudlin, lugubrious, frisson, praxis, copasetic, crotch, corollary, bandy, undulating, anthropomorphic and 65 more...
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My Words
velleity, phosphene, pandiculate, flibbertigibbet, nascent, pulchritude, parlance, quixotic, sepulcher, factitious, perspicacity, imbroglio and 118 more...
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learning
A list of words whose meanings I am learning, either because a) I don't know the meaning b) I know the meaning, but could stand to better appreciate certain inflections or secondary meanings or c) ...
louche, educe, loam, cob, sclerotic, palliate, axial, syndicalist, ecumenical, sally, fatuous, parvenu and 1216 more...
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my words
interminable, effete, convocation, philistines, malaise, foibles, deputation, anathematized, morass, stalwart, proselytize, abet and 405 more...
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Nick Yeow’s Words
Recently learned words that I like.
pharmaceutical, bowdlerise, connoisseur, cognoscenti, ostracise, aforementioned, antepenultimate, concatenate, extraterrestrial, psychiatrist, firmament, gastronomical and 100 more...
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use•ful
palmary, glossolalia, bothum, high-proof, synesthesia, odious, autochthonous, yawp, mordacious, dynamo, dishevel, titely and 396 more...
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litigious semantics
ad unguem, abeyance, choleric, contentious, curmudgeonly, churlish, dictatorial, vindictive, dogmatic, truculent, mutinous, refractory and 219 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2536 more...
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Thomas's Words
argus-eyed, chasmophile, extirpate, aperitif, outre, repartee, schadenfreude, insouciant, joie de vivre, callipygian, cavil, ad hominem and 138 more...


A Room With A View Nov 21, 2011
Language pedants hew to an oral tradition of shibboleths that have no basis in logic or style, that have been defied by great writers for centuries, and that have been disavowed by every thoughtful usage manual. Jan 22, 2009
The Biblical passage reminds me of a kind of practical joke in Italy which involves offering a Coca-Cola to a Tuscan. Most Italians can pronounce Coca-Cola perfectly well but in the Tuscan dialect the pronunciation comes out as Hoha-hola which sounds hohahilarious. Dec 17, 2007
The careful parsing of terms in the abortion debate is a good example. The use of choice is a shibboleth of the pro-choice crowd. The distinction between baby and fetus is also a good example from the same context. Dec 17, 2007
"And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay; then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand." – Judges, Ch. 12, vv. 5-6. Dec 9, 2007
THAT MAKES IT EXTRA AWESOME Dec 9, 2007