Word.ws English Dictionary

Daoism

/ˈdaʊ.ɪzm̩/

Daoism is the alternative form of Taoism.

Meaning of Taoism

Proper noun

Taoism

  1. A Chinese mystical philosophy traditionally founded by Lao-tzu in the 6th century B.C.E. that teaches conformity to the tao by wu wei, naturalness, and simplicity, long closely intertwined with Chinese folk religion and influenced by Buddhism, with which it shares five precepts.
    • The Chinese New Year holiday period, being disrupted this year by the outbreak of a viral illness, has evolved over more than 3,000 years to become the most important of China’s traditional festivals.
      As celebrated in China and in many other places where its known as the Lunar New Year, it is...2020 January 23, David Crary, “Chinese New Year secular now but kept religious underpinning”, in AP News, archived from the original on 15 Jun 2022
  2. (Singapore) Traditional Chinese folk religion.
    • Buddhism is the most followed religion in Singapore, with over 40 percent of the population declaring themselves believers, according to the latest census. Most of these practice a form of the religion that incorporates elements of Taoism and traditional Chinese faiths.2010 May 17, Edgar Su, “Lasers, iPods, for a Singapore funeral of a lifetime”, in Miral Fahmy, editor, Reuters, archived from the original on 15 Jun 2022, Lifestyle

Origin of Daoism

From Taoism but influenced by the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of Mandarin 道 (Dào).

Questions about Daoism

What is Daoism the alternative form of?
Daoism is the alternative form of Taoism.
How do you pronounce Daoism?
Daoism is pronounced /ˈdaʊ.ɪzm̩/.

Words near Daoism in the dictionary

  1. dao
  2. Dao De Jing
  3. Daocheng
  4. Daodejing
  5. Daoguang
  6. Daoism
  7. Daoisms
  8. Daoist
  9. Daoists
  10. daomanite
  11. daos

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Daoism (page history and authors); Taoism (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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Cite this entry: “Daoism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/daoism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.