imperialism
/ɪmˈpɪə.ɹi.ə.lɪ.z(ə)m/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.38 in modern English
17
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
6
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The policy of forcefully extending a nation's authority by territorial gain or by the establishment of economic and political dominance over other nations.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
Any undue extension of political, intellectual, or other forms of authority, particularly in regards to systems that benefit the Western world at the cost of the Global South.
Countable; Derogatory; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "Though most of the cases here cover European encounters with non-Europeans, it is not the intention of the book to give the impression that genocide is a function of European colonialism and imperialism alone."
- "The moral imperialism of the Supreme Court did not end with Chief Justice Warren’s resignation nor with the departures of the Justices who made up his distinctive majority."
- "By contrast, economists of the Chicago School approach [sociology] from a standpoint of the imperialism of economics, in the sense that they advance the study of substructure into the areas of the study of superstructure, by researching it as economics."
- "[…] her analysis of the discourse on private belief […] “reduced” and thus “explained away” my intuitions as being something other than what I experience them to be for myself. It was therefore the imperialism of her method that I claimed to be particularly offensive."
Etymology
Etymology tree English imperial 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 -ισμός (-ismós)der. English -ism English imperialism From imperial + -ism.
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ɪmˈpɪə.ɹi.ə.lɪ.z(ə)m/
- British English: /ɪmˈpɪə.ɹi.ə.lɪ.z(ə)m/