philistinism
noun
philistinism is a noun meaning “A materialistic attitude accompanied by ignorance of artistic or cultural matters” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled P-H-I-L-I-S-T-I-N-I-S-M, and it appears about once in every 34 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of philistinism is philistinisms.
What does philistinism mean?
noun
- 1
A materialistic attitude accompanied by ignorance of artistic or cultural matters.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of philistinism
- philistinisms plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is philistinism?
Philistinism appears about once in every 34 million words in written English, the 178,202nd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Philistinism in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense philistinism:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | béotisme |
| German | Banausentum, Banausie, Philisterei, Spießbürgertum |
| Portuguese | filistinismo |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does philistinism come from?
From philistine + -ism.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).