Definitions

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

  • noun A member of a people, perhaps of Aegean origin, who settled ancient Philistia around the 12th century BC.
  • noun A person who is smugly indifferent or hostile to art and culture.
  • adjective Of or relating to ancient Philistia.
  • adjective Relating to or having the attitudes of a philistine.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Of or pertaining to the ancient Philistines.
  • Of or pertaining to or having the characteristics of Philistines in the modern social and literary sense (see the noun, def. 3.); commonplace; dully matter-of-fact and satisfied; conventional and unimaginative.
  • noun One of a warlike immigrant people, of disputed origin, who inhabited parts of Philistia or Palestine, and contested the possession and sovereignty of it with the Israelites, and continued to harass them with much persistency for several centuries.
  • noun Hence A heathen enemy; an unfeeling foe: used humorously, for example, of a bailiff or sheriff's officer.
  • noun In Germany, one who has not been trained in a university: so called by the students.
  • noun A matter-of-fact, commonplace person; a man upon whom one can look down, as of culture inferior to one's own; one of “parochial” intellect; a satisfied person who is unaware of his own lack of culture.

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

  • adjective Of or pertaining to the Philistines.
  • adjective Uncultured; commonplace.
  • noun A native or an inhabitant of ancient Philistia, a coast region of southern Palestine.
  • noun Cant, Eng., obsolete A bailiff.
  • noun Recent A person deficient in liberal culture and refinement; one without appreciation of the nobler aspirations and sentiments of humanity; one whose scope is limited to selfish and material interests.

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

  • noun A person from ancient Philistia.
  • noun A person who lacks appreciation of art or culture.
  • adjective Of or pertaining to the ancient Philistines.
  • adjective Lacking appreciation of culture; also philistine.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a person who is uninterested in intellectual pursuits
  • noun a member of an Aegean people who settled ancient Philistia around the 12th century BC
  • adjective of or relating to ancient Philistia or its culture or its people
  • adjective smug and ignorant and indifferent or hostile to artistic and cultural values

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Middle English Philistines, Philistines, from Late Latin Philistīnī, from Greek Philistīnoi, from Hebrew Pəlištîm, from Pəlešet, Philistia.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Late Latin Philistinus, from Late Ancient Greek Φυλιστῖνοι (Phulistinoi), from Hebrew פְּלִשְׁתִּים (p'lishtím), from פְּלֶשֶׁת (p'léshet, "Philistia").

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