Historism

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An influential 19th-century school of thought in historiography that rejected universalist and anachronistic explanations of historical developments and instead emphasized the idiosyncrasies and organic developments of each culture and time period, to be understood through critical interpretation of primary sources in the context of the unique conditions that produced them. countable, uncountable

Etymology

From German Historismus.

Related phrases

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