fascism
/ˈfæʃɪz(ə)m/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.58 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
3
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Any right-wing, authoritarian, nationalist ideology characterized by centralized, totalitarian governance, strong regimentation of the economy and society, and repression of criticism or opposition.
Uncountable
noun
Any right-wing, authoritarian, nationalist ideology characterized by centralized, totalitarian governance, strong regimentation of the economy and society, and repression of criticism or opposition.
Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "Fascism, at any rate the German version, is a form of capitalism that borrows from Socialism just such features as will make it efficient for war purposes... Ownership has never been abolished, there are still capitalists and workers, and—this is the important point, and the real reason why rich men all over the world tend to sympathize with Fascism—generally speaking the same people are capitalists and the same people workers as before the Nazi revolution. But at the same time the State, which is simply the Nazi Party, is in control of everything... The mere efficiency of such a system, the elimination of waste and obstruction, is obvious. In seven years it has built up the most powerful war machine the world has ever seen."
- "Despite the three decades that have passed since the end of the second world war, fascism remains a subject of much heated argument. […] It also continues to be a subject of controversy, partly because it collides with so many preconceived ideological notions, partly because generalizations are made difficult by the fact that there was not one fascism but several fascisms."
- "Fascism became an all-purpose term because one can eliminate from a fascist regime one or more features, and it will still be recognizable as fascist. Take away imperialism from fascism and you still have Franco and Salazar. Take away colonialism and you still have the Balkan fascism of the Ustashes."
- "His criticism of what he calls “Kurdish fascism” prompted this interview, which is part of my current doctoral research[...]"
- "Today "Fascism" like Russian "Bolshevism" does not know what freedom means and cares less about the principles of liberty and the rights of man. It knows only one law and that is the will of Mussolini and his band of "Black Shirts.""
- "Fascism, with all its forcefulness in the prosecution of its violent deeds, is indeed nothing else but the expression of the disintegration and decay of capitalist economy, and the symptom of the dissolution of the bourgeois State."
Etymology
From Italian fascismo, from fascio (“fasces, bundle, group”) + -ismo (“-ism”) with direct reference to Benito Mussolini's fasci di combattimento ("fight clubs"), from Latin fasces, bundles of axes and rods carried before the magistrates of the ancient Roman Republic as representative of their power of life and death. Originally with exclusive reference to Fascist Italy which used the fasces as an emblem, later broadened to describe all of the Axis Powers of World War II, and subsequently used as a general term of opprobrium in English and international political discourse. Etymology tree Latin fascis Italian fascio Proto-Indo-European *-id- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti Proto-Hellenic *-íd͏̌d͏̌ō Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō) Proto-Indo-European *-mos Proto-Indo-European *-mós Ancient Greek -μός (-mós) Ancient Greek -ῐσμός (-ĭsmós)bor. Latin -ismus Italian -ismo Italian fascismolbor. English fascism
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈfæʃɪz(ə)m/
Usage
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Phrases
anarcho-fascism
anti-fascism
Austro-fascism
bio-fascism
body fascism
crypto-fascism
eco-fascism
Euro-fascism