Philistinism

noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A materialistic attitude accompanied by ignorance of artistic or cultural matters. countable, uncountable

    "It's impossible to tell the story of flamenco without talking about Lorca, who found in it a source of inspiration in a lifelong political-cultural-sexual struggle against bourgeois philistinism."

  2. 2
    a desire for wealth and material possessions with little interest in ethical or spiritual matters wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
animalityarmorbad tastebarbarismbarbaritybestiality

Example

More examples

"It's impossible to tell the story of flamenco without talking about Lorca, who found in it a source of inspiration in a lifelong political-cultural-sexual struggle against bourgeois philistinism."

Etymology

From philistine + -ism.

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