Dogma

How to spell dogma

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce dogma

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does dogma mean?

1. nounA principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as unquestionably true.

Dogma in a sentence

• The new manager challenged the accepted dogma about long office hours.

• Religious dogma shaped much of the council's debate.

Where does dogma come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word comes directly from the Greek dogma, which meant 'that which one thinks is true', an opinion, a belief, or an official decree. It was built on the verb dokein, meaning 'to seem good' or 'to think', the same root that gives us 'orthodox' (right belief) and 'paradox' (something contrary to expectation). In the ancient world a dogma could be a philosopher's settled teaching or a ruler's published edict, and that flavour of fixed, authoritative pronouncement survived into later use. Latin borrowed the term unchanged as dogma, and from there it passed into English in the early 1600s, at first mainly in religious and philosophical writing for a doctrine laid down as unquestionably true. Because it kept its Greek form intact, the spelling preserves the slightly unusual -gma cluster, where the silent-feeling g sits right against the m, which is the small trap for writers.

How the word is built

• dogma (Greek: an opinion or decree), from dokein (to seem good, to think)