Esotericism

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The tendency to promote or desire the esoteric. countable, uncountable

    "Derridean "messianicity without messianism" that marks so much of post-modernist educational theorizing today, and that makes use of esotericism, sigetics, acroamatics, proleptics, and illocutionary and perlocutionary acts in the disguise of a new pedagogy of the unknowable, wasn't the answer ten years ago."

  2. 2
    Doctrines or practices of esoteric knowledge. countable, uncountable

Synonyms

All synonyms
arcanenessarcanitycabalaesotericshocus pocusmumbo jumbo

Example

More examples

"Derridean "messianicity without messianism" that marks so much of post-modernist educational theorizing today, and that makes use of esotericism, sigetics, acroamatics, proleptics, and illocutionary and perlocutionary acts in the disguise of a new pedagogy of the unknowable, wasn't the answer ten years ago."

Etymology

From esoteric + -ism.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.