Semitism
(ˈsɛmɪtɪz(ə)m)
[f. Semite + -ism.]
1. The attributes characteristic of the Semitic peoples. Also, the fact of being Semitic.
| 1851 Latham Man & his Migrations 146 The amount of Semitism in certain families. 1863 W. L. Bevan in Smith's Dict. Bible II. s.v. Philistines, A period when the distinctive features of Hamitism and Semitism were yet in embryo. |
b. In recent use, Jewish ideas or Jewish influence in politics and society.
| 1885 Guardian 6 May 697/3 The rivalry which exists with Catholicism and Semitism. 1886 W. J. Tucker E. Europe 198 The Church of Rome will never countenance semitic innovations of any sort. The Catholic party must be propped up by staunch opponents to semitism. |
2. A Semitic word or idiom; also (nonce-use) Semitic speech.
| 1869 Farrar Fam. Speech iii. (1870) 114 The soberest conclusion seems to be..for the present to exclude Egyptian from the dignity of being a kind of ante-historic Semitism. 1886 Huxley in 19th Cent. Apr. 498 The Egyptian language, during the period of the nineteenth dynasty, is said by Brugsch to be as full of Semitisms as German is of Gallicisms. 1898 Sir H. H. Howorth in Eng. Hist. Rev. Jan. 11 These Semitisms [in Egyptian], moreover, are partly popular, partly literary in origin. |