Phalanstery
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 An association or community organized on the plan of Charles Fourier, with living space divided hierarchically and higher pay for those carrying out unpopular tasks.
"[S]he seemed to him a revelation of a class, and a multitude of socialistic figures, of names and episodes that he had heard of, grouped themselves behind her. She looked as if she had spent her life on platforms, in audiences, in conventions, in phalansteries, in séances; in her faded face there was a kind of reflection of ugly lecture-lamps; with its habit of an upward angle, it seemed turned toward a public speaker, with an effort of respiration in the thick air in which social reforms are usually discussed."
- 2 The dwelling house of a Fourierite community.
"2005, Andrew Loman, "Somewhat on the Community-System": Representations of Fourierism in the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Taylor & Francis (Routledge), page xxiv, When Hollingsworth and Priscilla retreat to a cottage at the end of the novel, they are spurning not only reformatories and phalansteries but also boarding-houses, tenements, and hotels."
Example
More examples"[S]he seemed to him a revelation of a class, and a multitude of socialistic figures, of names and episodes that he had heard of, grouped themselves behind her. She looked as if she had spent her life on platforms, in audiences, in conventions, in phalansteries, in séances; in her faded face there was a kind of reflection of ugly lecture-lamps; with its habit of an upward angle, it seemed turned toward a public speaker, with an effort of respiration in the thick air in which social reforms are usually discussed."
Etymology
From French phalanstère.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.