philistine
Speech parts
1. philistine - Noun
2. philistine - Adjective
3. philistine - Adjective Satellite
Meaning
A native or an inhabitant of ancient Philistia, a coast region of southern Palestine.
A bailiff.
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.
Of or pertaining to the Philistines.
Uncultured; commonplace.
Source: Webster's dictionarySynonyms
Antonyms
Show all antonymsHypernyms
Phrases with the word
Examples
A man who has no mental needs, because his intellect is of the narrow and normal amount, is, in the strict sense of the word, what is called a philistine.
Regrettably, one of the surest signs of the Philistine is his reverence for the superior tastes of those who put him down.
Philistine must have originally meant, in the mind of those who invented the nickname, a strong, dogged, unenlightened opponent of the chosen people, of the children of the light.
I started to shed the monstrous aesthetic affectation of my youth so as to make room for the monstrous philistine postures of middle age, but it was some years before I was bold enough to decline an invitation to "Hamlet" on the grounds that I knew who won.
There is nothing more vapid than a philistine petty bourgeois existence with its farthings, victuals, vacuous conversations, and useless conventional virtue.
Philistine – a word which I understand properly to denote indifference to the higher intellectual interests. The word may also be defined, however, as the name applied by prigs to the rest of their species.