Fundamentalist

How to spell fundamentalist

14 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce fundamentalist

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does fundamentalist mean?

1. nounA person who insists on strict, literal adherence to the basic principles of a religion or ideology.
2. adjectiveRelating to or characterised by strict, literal adherence to basic principles or beliefs.

Fundamentalist in a sentence

• noun

  The broadcaster interviewed a fundamentalist who rejected any reinterpretation of the ancient text.

• adjective

  The group adopted a fundamentalist reading of the founding charter and resisted every amendment.

• noun

  As a self-described fundamentalist, he refused to compromise on a single doctrine.

• adjective

  Her fundamentalist stance on the rules left no room for exceptions.

Where does fundamentalist come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin fundamentum, meaning 'foundation' or 'groundwork', which itself was built on fundus, the everyday Latin word for 'bottom' or 'the lowest part'. The same root gives us 'fund', 'foundation', and 'profound', all sharing the idea of something at the base or the depths. By way of Old French and Latin, 'fundamental' settled into English in the fifteenth century to describe whatever forms the essential base of a thing. The noun 'fundamentalist' is much more recent: it arose in the early twentieth century in the United States to name conservative Protestants who insisted on returning to what they saw as the foundational, literal truths of scripture, and it was soon broadened to any movement demanding strict adherence to original principles. The spelling trap lives in the unstressed middle, the 'a' of 'funda-' and the 'e' of '-ment', both reduced to a vague schwa in speech, so the safest memory hook is to see 'fundament' (the foundation) sitting at the heart of the word before you add '-al' and '-ist'.

How the word is built

• fund (from Latin fundus: bottom, base)
• -ment (result/state)
• -al (adjective)
• -ist (one who holds a belief)