Ideological

How to spell ideological

11 letters · 6 syllables

How to pronounce ideological

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does ideological mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to or based on a system of political, economic, or social ideas and beliefs.

Ideological in a sentence

• The two parties were divided by a deep ideological disagreement over taxation.

• Her decision to leave the firm was ideological rather than financial.

Where does ideological come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This adjective traces back through the noun 'ideology', a term coined in French as ideologie during the late 1700s by the philosopher Destutt de Tracy, who meant it as the 'science of ideas'. He built it from two Greek elements: idea, meaning 'form, pattern, or notion' (originally something seen, from the verb idein 'to see'), and the familiar suffix -logia, meaning 'study or discourse', from logos 'word, reason'. The adjective 'ideological' followed soon after, entering English in the early 1800s as politics and philosophy borrowed heavily from French intellectual vocabulary. Over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the meaning narrowed from the neutral 'study of ideas' to its modern sense of relating to a system of political or social beliefs, often carrying a hint of rigid partisanship. The spelling trap lives in the joints: the soft 'g' before the 'i' and the unstressed schwa vowels mean writers must remember the -ideo- opening and the -logical ending rather than spelling it as it sounds.

How the word is built

• ideo- (from Greek idea: form, notion)
• -log- (from logos: word, study)
• -ical (adjective suffix)