Word.ws English Dictionary

animism

/ˈænɪmɪzəm/

animism noun: a belief that spirits inhabit some or all classes of natural objects or phenomena.

Noun

animism (countable and uncountable, plural animisms)

  1. A belief that spirits inhabit some or all classes of natural objects or phenomena.
    • "I'm not entirely comfortable with the level of animism you and Hanners display towards that thing."2015, Jeph Jacques, Questionable Content (webcomic), Number 3126: Been A While I Guess
  2. A belief that an immaterial force animates the universe.
  3. (dated) A doctrine that animal life is produced by an immaterial spirit.

animism meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Arabic and Indonesian

animism in Hindi

belief in spirits
जीववाद jīvvād

animism in Tamil

ஆன்ம வாதம், ஆவியுலகக்கோட்பாடு

animism in Arabic

belief in spirits
أرواحية

animism in Indonesian

belief in spirits
animisme

Forms of animism

pluralanimisms

Origin of animism

From anima + -ism, from Latin anima (“life", "breath", "soul”). Dated sense from German Animismus, coined c. 1720 by physicist/chemist Georg Ernst Stahl (1660-1734) See anima mundi.

Words formed from animism

Questions about animism

What does animism mean?
Animism means a belief that spirits inhabit some or all classes of natural objects or phenomena.
What is animism in Hindi?
Animism in Hindi is जीववाद (jīvvād). See Animism meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is animism?
Animism is a noun.
How do you pronounce animism?
Animism is pronounced /ˈænɪmɪzəm/.
What is the plural of animism?
The plural of animism is animisms.

Words near animism in the dictionary

  1. animesque
  2. animeverse
  3. animeverses
  4. Animikean
  5. animikite
  6. animism
  7. animisms
  8. animist
  9. animistic
  10. animistically
  11. animists

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: animism (page history and authors); animism (Tamil Wiktionary) (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)-VCcortex-animism.wav.

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