Ideologies

How to spell ideologies

10 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce ideologies

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does ideologies mean?

1. nounSystems of ideas and beliefs, especially political or economic ones, that guide how groups think and act.

Ideologies in a sentence

• The two parties hold sharply opposing ideologies on taxation.

• The course compares the major economic ideologies of the last century.

Where does ideologies come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to two Greek elements: idea, meaning a 'form', 'notion' or 'mental image', and logos, meaning 'word', 'reason' or 'study'. The singular ideology was not an ancient term, however; it was coined in French as idéologie by the philosopher Antoine Destutt de Tracy in 1796, who intended it to name a proposed 'science of ideas' that would study how thoughts arise from sensations. English borrowed the word in the early nineteenth century, and its meaning soon drifted away from that neutral science toward today's sense of a connected system of political or social beliefs. Napoleon helped sour the term by mocking his opponents as idéologues, impractical theorists detached from reality, which coloured the word with a faintly critical edge it still carries. The plural ideologies simply follows the regular English rule of turning a final -y into -ies, and the steady ideo- and -logy spelling links it to relatives such as idea, ideal and biology.

How the word is built

• ideo- (from Greek idea: form, notion)
• -logy (from logos: study, discourse)
• -ies (plural of -y)