Westernismn.
/ˈwɛstn̩ɪz(ə)m/, /ˈwɛstənɪz(ə)m/, U.S. /ˈwɛstərnˌɪz(ə)m/ 1. An idiom or expression peculiar to the western United States.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > language > languages of the world > Indo-Hittite > [noun] > Indo-European > Germanic > English > American English > idiom of
Americanism1781
Yankeeism1820
New Englandism1831
Westernism1836
Canadianism1838
Hoosierism1843
southernism1855
transatlanticism1858
frontierism1890
New Yorkerism1951
1836 C. G. Olmsted Bible, its own Refut. 226 They were laboring under a great mistake—to use a westernism—barking up the wrong tree.
1886 Harper's Mag. Oct. 773 ‘It hasn't—ah—panned out.’ He involuntarily made a droll face as he uttered this Westernism.
1925 Amer. Speech 1 150/1 ‘Rustle for your bacon’ is much more than a quaint Westernism; it is the expression of a people still close to their grim struggle with an unrelenting wilderness.
1964 J. C. Coble in T. Horn Life (1979) p. xiii The Westernisms, and even the slang, have been retained.
1996 High Country News 30 Sept. 7/3 Would you like to add some colorful Westernisms to your vocabulary?
2. Behaviour, attitudes, etc., considered characteristic of western culture (in various senses); esp. European and North American practices as distinguished from those of Asia. Also: an instance of this.In quot. 1843: a practice peculiar to the United States as distinguished from Europe.
ΘΚΠ
the world > people > nations > native or inhabitant of specific region > [noun] > western person > westernism
occidentalism1839
Westernism1843
1843 Gift 44 I must protest against this patriarchal style of courtship being considered a Westernism.
1870 N. Macleod Days in North India i. 31 There was the absence of every trace of Westernism, for so far as the eye could see, no Englishman had ever visited Benares.
1892 W. W. Peyton Mem. Jesus 298 Our theology is too Eastern: we want our Westernism in it.
1909 School Rev. 17 468 One and all of the westernisms, which they [sc. Chinese educational institutions] have incorporated by the wholesale, have been corrupted.
1924 Scribner's Mag. Jan. 19/2 Patches of glaring ‘Westernism’..merely emphasize Belgrade's fundamental ‘Balkanism’.
1962 W. H. Fisher To light Candle i. v. 40 She embraced my Westernism with delight. Despised all her life for her natural feet, she promptly claimed kinship with us Americans.
1991 World Monitor Apr. 18/3 Some social and political publications..express a liberal-democratic Westernism.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2011; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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n.1836