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Webster 1913 Edition


Barbarism

Bar′ba-rism

(bär′bȧ-rĭz’m)
,
Noun.
[L.
barbarismus
, Gr.
βαρβαρισμός
; cf. F.
barbarisme
.]
1.
An uncivilized state or condition; rudeness of manners; ignorance of arts, learning, and literature; barbarousness.
Prescott.
2.
A barbarous, cruel, or brutal action; an outrage.
A heinous
barbarism
. . . against the honor of marriage.
Milton.
3.
An offense against purity of style or language; any form of speech contrary to the pure idioms of a particular language. See
Solecism
.
The Greeks were the first that branded a foreign term in any of their writers with the odious name of
barbarism
.
G. Campbell.

Definition 2024


barbarism

barbarism

English

Noun

barbarism (countable and uncountable, plural barbarisms)

  1. A barbaric act.
    These barbarisms can not be allowed to continue; they must be crushed or civilization will collapse.
  2. The condition of existing barbarically.
    • 1879, William Tecumseh Sherman, Address to the Michigan Military Academy
      War is at best barbarism... Its glory is all moonshine.
  3. An error in language use within a single word, such as a mispronunciation.
    • 2002, Hyman, Bad Grammar in Context, New England Classical Journal, 29, p. 94-101
      In the jargon of the ancient grammarian, penacilin would be a barbarism.

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