Exoticism

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The state of being exotic. uncountable, usually

    "For all the exoticism of the images, they possess a phenomenal immediacy and even contemporaneity."

  2. 2
    the quality of being exotic wordnet
  3. 3
    Something exotic. uncountable, usually

    "Chinese restaurants, now dotting this peninsula like azaleas at Cypress Gardens, have introduced thousands of us Occidentals to the delights of moo goo gai pan. As a result, attempts to produce such exoticisms in our own homes have multiplied."

  4. 4
    A word changed in spelling or pronunciation to look or sound more exotic or foreign. uncountable, usually

    "The English pronunciations of Beijing and Chumash with French-like j and ch are exoticisms, as is the spelling T'Sou-ke for the original Anglicization Sooke."

Synonyms

All synonyms
exoticnessexotismexoticityexoticnesshyperforeignism

Example

More examples

"The streets are filled with an air of exoticism."

Etymology

From exotic + -ism.

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