Word.ws English Dictionary

esotericism

esotericism noun: the tendency to promote or desire the esoteric.

Noun

esotericism (countable and uncountable, plural esotericisms)

  1. The tendency to promote or desire the esoteric.
    • Derridean "messianicity without messianism" that marks so much of post-modernist educational theorizing today, and that makes use of esotericism, sigetics, acroamatics, proleptics, and illocutionary and perlocutionary acts in the disguise of a new pedagogy of the unknowable, wasn't the answer ten...2002, Dave Hill, Marxism Against Postmodernism in Educational Theory, page 257
    Antonyms:
    exotericism
  2. Doctrines or practices of esoteric knowledge.
    • Near-synonym: woo woo
    • Western esotericism
    Synonyms:
    woo woo

Synonyms of esotericism

Antonyms

Forms of esotericism

pluralesotericisms

Origin of esotericism

From esoteric + -ism.

Questions about esotericism

What does esotericism mean?
Esotericism means the tendency to promote or desire the esoteric.
What part of speech is esotericism?
Esotericism is a noun.
What is the plural of esotericism?
The plural of esotericism is esotericisms.

Words near esotericism in the dictionary

  1. esoteric programming language
  2. esoteric programming languages
  3. esoterica
  4. esoterical
  5. esoterically
  6. esotericism
  7. esotericisms
  8. esotericist
  9. esotericists
  10. esotericities
  11. esotericity

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: esotericism (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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