Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Love of and devotion to one's country.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Love of one's country; the passion which moves a person to serve his country, either in defending it from invasion or in protecting its rights and maintaining its laws and institutions.
- noun Love of country embodied or personified; patriots collectively.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Love of country; devotion to the welfare of one's country; the virtues and actions of a patriot; the passion which inspires one to serve one's country.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun love of
country ; devotion to the welfare of one'scompatriots ; the virtues and actions of apatriot ; the passion which inspires one to serve one's country - noun the desire to compete with other nations;
nationalism
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun love of country and willingness to sacrifice for it
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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As in patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels.
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Here is what Goldberg writes today about the term patriotism and how Barack Obama, according to Goldberg, is not really a patriot at all:
Larisa Alexandrovna: The Far-Right's Patriotism Problem 2008
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To the Cheneys of the world, the term patriotism means being an american right winger and a nazi.
Think Progress » CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Calls Out Lynne Cheney For ‘Sniping At My Patriotism’ 2006
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In a time when the term patriotism means supporting the nation's wars and statism, a libertarian patriotism has more in common with that advanced by The Nation magazine: The other company of patriots does not march to military time.
Archive 2005-01-01 2005
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It enables us to give a training in patriotism to the young people of the country, and I think patriotism is a high moral ideal-true patriotism, not hatred of other lands, but love of his own land, the consciousness of the glory of being a Canadian and of being associated with the grand old British Empire.
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"The word patriotism did not come out of my mouth … what the president is calling on Democrats and Republicans to do is support the best interests of the country," Earnest said.
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But there's also another nationalism, which we call patriotism, which is a love of country and is perfectly inclusive, and I don't think you can run a country unless you can appeal to it.
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But there's also another nationalism, which we call patriotism, which is a love of country and is perfectly inclusive, and I don't think you can run a country unless you can appeal to it.
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They place a premium on nationalism, which they call patriotism, and on what the Germans call Ordnung.
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His experience of America and of America -- American exceptionalism, which is what we call patriotism, is something that's completely different and he has to explain that to people, you know.
abraxaszugzwang commented on the word patriotism
To me, it seems a dreadful indignity to have a soul controlled by geography. ~George Santayana
Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons. ~Bertrand Russell
Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may. ~Mark Twain
Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it. ~George Bernard Shaw
He is a poor patriot whose patriotism does not enable him to understand how all men everywhere feel about their altars and their hearthstones, their flag and their fatherland. ~Harry Emerson Fosdick
What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child? ~Lin Yutang
If I knew something that would serve my country but would harm mankind, I would never reveal it; for I am a citizen of humanity first and by necessity, and a citizen of France second, and only by accident. ~Montesquieu
Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him? ~Blaise Pascal, quoted by Tolstoy in Bethink Yourselves
January 28, 2007
skipvia commented on the word patriotism
They say that patriotism is the last refuge
to which a scoundrel clings.
Steal a little and they throw you in jail,
steal a lot and they make you king."
Bob Dylan, Sweetheart Like You
November 1, 2007
bilby commented on the word patriotism
"Considering the evil results that patriotism is fraught with for the average man, it is as nothing compared with the insult and injury that patriotism heaps upon the soldier himself, that poor, deluded victim of superstition and ignorance. He, the savior of his country, the protector of his nation, what has patriotism in store for him? A life of slavish submission, vice, and perversion, during peace; a life of danger, exposure, and death, during war."
- Emma Goldman, 'Patriotism, A Menace To Liberty', 1911.
March 1, 2009