What does "ethnocentrism" mean?

The tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of one's own traditional, deferred, or adoptive ethnic culture.

What is a synonym for "ethnocentrism"?

Common synonyms include: alien, apartheid, division, exclusiveness, insularity, insulation.

Pronounced //ˌɛθ.nəʊˈsɛn.tɹɪzm̩//.

//ˌɛθ.nəʊˈsɛn.tɹɪzm̩// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
The tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of one's own traditional, deferred, or adoptive ethnic culture. countable, uncountable
2
belief in the superiority of one's own ethnic group wordnet

"Monolingualism is like a disease, as it leads to ethnocentrism and culture isolation. But this disease can be cured."

From ethno- + -centrism.

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