Word.ws English Dictionary

-icism

/ɪsɪzəm/

-icism suffix: forms abstract nouns from Greek or Latin bases.

Suffix

-icism

  1. Forms abstract nouns from Greek or Latin bases.

Origin of -icism

From -ic + -ism, either based directly on the adjective in -ic (as in asceticism, mysticism), or on the verb in -ise (as in anglicism). Some productivity within English, as in witticism (1670s, by analogy with criticism).

Words formed from -icism

Questions about -icism

What does -icism mean?
-icism means forms abstract nouns from Greek or Latin bases.
What part of speech is -icism?
-icism is a suffix.
How do you pronounce -icism?
-icism is pronounced /ɪsɪzəm/.

Words near -icism in the dictionary

  1. -ice
  2. -ichnion
  3. -ician
  4. -icidal
  5. -icide
  6. -icism
  7. -icity
  8. -ick
  9. -icle
  10. -ics
  11. -id

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: -icism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl--icisim.wav.

Cite this entry: “-icism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/-icism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.