Ideology

//ˌaɪ.diːˈɒl.ə.d͡ʒiː// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Doctrine, philosophy, body of beliefs or principles belonging to an individual or group. countable, uncountable

    "A dictatorship bans things, that do not conform to its ideology, to secure its reign."

  2. 2
    imaginary or visionary theorization wordnet
  3. 3
    The study of the origin and nature of ideas. uncountable
  4. 4
    an orientation that characterizes the thinking of a group or nation wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
articles of religionbody of ideascatechismclimateclimate of opinioncredenda

Example

More examples

"This is the ideology to which my speech is written."

Etymology

Borrowed from French idéologie, from idéo- + -logie (equivalent to English ideo- + -logy). Cognate with, but not derived from, idea. Coined 1796 by Antoine Destutt de Tracy. Modern sense of “doctrine” attributed to use of related idéologue (“ideologue”) by Napoleon Bonaparte as a term of abuse towards political opponents in early 1800s.

Related phrases

gender ideologysuccessor ideology

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