Colonialism
noun ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 The policy of a country seeking to extend or retain its authority over other people or territories, generally with the aim of economic dominance. countable, uncountable
"Though most of the cases here cover European encounters with non-Europeans, it is not the intention of the book to give the impression that genocide is a function of European colonialism and imperialism alone."
- 2 exploitation by a stronger country of weaker one; the use of the weaker country's resources to strengthen and enrich the stronger country wordnet
- 3 Any form of foreign influence seen as undesirable. broadly, countable, derogatory, uncountable
- 4 A colonial word, phrase, concept, or habit. countable, uncountable
"Although the settlement seems so far to have made but slow progress, there are many things which show that, to use a colonialism, "the place was going ahead.""
- 5 Colonial life. countable, uncountable
Example
More examples"More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations."
Etymology
From colonial + -ism.
Related phrases
More for "colonialism"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.