Concept
-ism
Overview
Ism / -ism () is a suffix in many English words, originally derived from the Ancient Greek suffix -ισμός (-ismós), and reached English through the Latin -ismus, and the French -isme. It is used to create abstract nouns of action, state, condition, or doctrine, and is often used to describe philosophies, theories, religions, social movements, artistic movements, lifestyles, behaviors, scientific phenomena, or medical conditions. The suffix has also been used as an independent noun since the 17th century. The concept of an 'ism' can, and often does, resemble that of a grand narrative.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
It may be said to be, at once, both what the logicians call, a singular, and what they call, a common term; and to join, in its signification the seemingly opposite qualities of the most precise individuality and the most extensive generalization. This word, therefore, expressing so very abstract and metaphysical an idea, would not easily or readily occur to the first formers of language. What are called the…
Adam Smith, The Essays of Adam Smith
States what -ism is.
Force and fineness of understanding are often spoken of as something different from general force and fineness of nature, as something partly independent of them. The necessities of language probably require this; but in truth these qualities are not distinct and independent: except in special cases, and from special causes, they ever go together.
Thomas Carlyle, Life of Robert Burns
The author is tied to -ism in the knowledge graph.
Rituals, Liturgies, Creeds, Hierarchies: all this is not religion; all this, were it dead as Odinism, as Fetishism, does not kill religion at all! It is Stupidity alone, with never so many rituals, that kills religion. Is not this still a World?
Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII.
The author is tied to -ism in the knowledge graph.
Related ideas
- French language
- Feminism
- Thomas Carlyle
- Hedonism
- Philosophy
- Julian Huxley
- Ancient Greek
- Atheism
- Transcendentalism
- Latin
- Medicine
- Spiritualism (movement)
- Mormonism
- Oxford English Dictionary
- Pacifism
- Religion
- Racism
- Science
- Socialism
- Sexism
- Speciesism
- Behavior
- Suffix
- Fourierism
Place in the tradition
Part of Anarchism.