Colonialism

How to spell colonialism

11 letters · 6 syllables

How to pronounce colonialism

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does colonialism mean?

1. nounThe policy or practice of one country taking control of another territory, settling it, and exploiting it economically and politically.

Colonialism in a sentence

• The lecture examined how colonialism reshaped the economies of three continents.

• The museum exhibit traced the lasting effects of colonialism on local languages.

Where does colonialism come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin colonia, meaning a settlement or farm of citizens planted in conquered territory, which in turn came from colonus, a farmer or settler, and ultimately from the verb colere, meaning 'to cultivate, till, or inhabit'. The Romans used colonia for the communities of settlers they established across their empire, so the idea of moving people into a distant land was baked into the word from the very start. English took 'colony' through French and directly from Latin in the late medieval period, and the adjective 'colonial' followed. The abstract noun 'colonialism' is a much later, nineteenth-century formation, built by adding the doctrine-forming suffix '-ism' to name the policy and practice of one country controlling and exploiting others. The same colere root sits behind 'cultivate', 'culture', and 'agriculture', a reminder that the spelling keeps a single 'l' in colon-, with the doubled letters appearing only in the suffix '-ll-' words like 'colonel', which is unrelated.

How the word is built

• colon- (from Latin colonus: settler, farmer)
• -ial (adjective suffix)
• -ism (doctrine, system)