Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

tokenism

/tˈoʊkənˌɪzəm/

Word Rarity Very rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.06 in modern English

Syllables: to-kenism
IPA: /tˈoʊkənˌɪzəm/

14

Scrabble Score

8

Letters

4

Syllables

8

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

A policy of formally complying with efforts to achieve a goal by making small, token gestures; especially to hire a minimal number of ethnically diverse or disadvantaged people.

Countable; Uncountable

Example Sentences

"We know the prime minister regards environmental matters as mere tokenism. But we at least expected his ritual once-a-year speech on the issue."
"Contemporary museums, they need to stop tokenism. Collect an Iranian artist here, a South African artist there or whatever. They need to really begin to try to properly take on … what is contemporary culture today?"
"This has to be meaningful contribution and participation – tokenism will only come to bite us in the future."

Etymology

Etymology tree English token 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 tokenism From token + -ism.

Usage

Inflected Forms

tokenisms (plural)

Frequently Paired Words

tokenise tokenist tokenistic

Questions

How do you pronounce tokenism?: The recorded pronunciation is /tˈoʊkənˌɪzəm/.
What does tokenism mean?: A policy of formally complying with efforts to achieve a goal by making small, token gestures; especially to hire a minimal number of ethnically diverse or disadvantaged people.
Where does tokenism come from?: Etymology tree English token 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 tokenism From token + -ism.

How to pronounce tokenism

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