philistinism

Noun

Meaning

The condition, character, aims, and habits of the class called Philistines. See Philistine, 3.

Synonyms

Antonyms

Hypernyms

Examples

The rich philistinism emanating from advertisements is due not to their exaggerating (or inventing) the glory of this or that serviceable article but to suggesting that the acme of human happiness is purchasable and that its purchase somehow ennobles the purchaser. Vladimir Nabokov

Philosophy is like a mother who gave birth to and endowed all the other sciences. Therefore, one should not scorn her in her nakedness and poverty, but should hope, rather, that part of her Don Quixote ideal will live on in her children so that they do not sink into philistinism. Albert Einstein

Philistinism implies not only a collection of stock ideas but also the use of set phrases, clichés, banalities expressed in faded words. A true philistine has nothing but these trivial ideas of which he entirely consists. Vladimir Nabokov

‘...Your little feuilleton...recording...my crude nabob's philistinism...' Anthony Burgess

Detective stories are the art-for-art's sake of yawning Philistinism. V. S. Pritchett

Philistinism We have not the expression in English. Perhaps we have not the word because we have so much of the thing. Matthew Arnold

Close letter words and terms