shibboleth
/ˈʃɪbəlɛθ/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.00 in modern English
20
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
3
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A particular pronunciation or custom that is regarded as distinguishing members of a group from non-members, especially when used as a test.
noun
A common or longstanding belief, custom, or catchphrase associated with a particular group, especially one with little current meaning or truth.
Example Sentences
- "In recent times, the correct treatment of initial h in speech has come to be regarded as a kind of shibboleth of social position."
- "He also declares that "th" is the veritable English shibboleth. He advises those Germans who cannot pronounce the sound correctly to pronounce it like "d," the symbol which he regularly uses for "th" in his lessons."
- "It's about time we abandoned the bourgeois shibboleth that earning money makes you a better person."
- "The teacher says he must stick largely to the old methods and cling to the old shibboleths or he will naturally get bad results in the examination. Only much practice along the lines the examination is going to follow will insure a [success]."
- "I pose the iconoclastic suggestion that even at this late stage in B.R. dieselisation, rigid standardisation might be a shibboleth."
- "The truth is that I found success by stumbling off alone in a direction most people thought was a dead end, breaking all the 1990s shibboleths about children’s books in the process."
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Biblical Hebrew שִׁבֹּלֶת /שיבולת (šibbṓleṯ, “ear [of wheat] or stream, torrent”). Doublet of sebboleth and Middle English sebolech, both from Late Latin sebboleth in the Vulgate.