Wiktionary

statism

English edit

WOTD – 20 January 2006

Etymology edit

From state +‎ -ism. Doublet of etatism.

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

statism (countable and uncountable, plural statisms)

  1. (often derogatory) The belief that most or all political power should be centralized in national governments.
    Synonyms: etatism, big government, dirigisme, paternalism
    • 1890, W.D.P. Bliss, What is Christian Socialism?, page 21:
      Bismarck... believes in State insurance in State activities, in place of individual action. But this is not Socialism. It is Statism.
    • 1940 November 5, The Sun, Baltimore, p. 5:
      Republican Senator Charles L. McNary concluded his Vice-Presidential campaign tonight with the charge the New Deal is ‘taking deeper and deeper refuge in paternalism and statism’.
    • 1971 January 10, Stan Lehr, Louis Rossetto, “The New Right Credo–Libertarianism”, in The New York Times‎[1], →ISSN:
      As the economic derivative of libertarianism, laissez-faire capitalism is an economics of life, of rationality. […] And, like libertarianism, it is the only viable solution to the catastrophe of statism in the modern age.
    • 1996, Louis Rossetto, “19th Century Nostrums are not Solutions to 21st Century Problems”, in Mute, volume 1, number 4, →ISSN:
      […] ; social welfare policies reward parasitical living rather than risk-taking; a truly atavistic, sick attachment to the compulsion and non-meritocratic elitism of statism as a way of life; […] have all retarded and will continue to retard Europeans.
  2. (often derogatory, uncommon) The belief that most or nearly all political power should be decentralized to provincial governments.
    Synonyms: regionalism, federalism, provincialism
    • 1854 July 1, The Times, London, p. 9:
      The joint note of Austria and Prussia... appears thus to have worked more good than moderation and good sense generally achieve over faction and petty-Statism.
    • 1875, A.H. Bullock, Intellectual Leadership Illustrated in American History, page 37:
      To him... we owe that sentiment of nationalism prevailing over statism... without which the Union would have parted.
  3. (rare, obsolete) Synonym of statecraft or statesmanship.
    • 1608, J. F. Le Petit, translated by Edward Grimeston, General History of the Netherlands, page 1113:
      My great Cousin hauing euermore
      From my greene yeares accepted my aduise
      In points of statisme...
  4. (derogatory, obsolete) Synonym of secularism: subservience of religious issues to political officials and expediency.
    • 1609, William Barlow, An Answer to a Catholike English-man, page 370:
      Religion turned into Statisme, will soone prooue Atheisme.
  5. (obsolete) Synonym of government or governance.
    • 1839, John Hobart Caunter, Poetry of the Pentateuch, page 189:
      [The Ten Commandments] have formed the basis of every system of statism adopted by the civilized communities of the earth.

Hyponyms edit

Derived terms edit

Translations edit

References edit

Romanian edit

Etymology edit

Borrowed from French statisme.

Noun edit

statism n (uncountable)

  1. stasis (state of motionlessness)

Declension edit

declension of statism (singular only)
singular
n gender indefinite articulation definite articulation
nominative/accusative (un) statism statismul
genitive/dative (unui) statism statismului
vocative statismule
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