Word.ws English Dictionary

Law of Jante

/ˈjæntə/

Law of Jante proper noun: a social code in Scandinavian countries that opposes individualism, ambition, and vanity.

Proper noun

the Law of Jante

  1. A social code in Scandinavian countries that opposes individualism, ambition, and vanity.

Origin of Law of Jante

Introduced by the Dano-Norwegian author Aksel Sandemose in the 1933 novel A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks (En flyktning krysser sitt spor), in which Jante is a small Danish town where nobody is anonymous.

Questions about Law of Jante

What does Law of Jante mean?
Law of Jante means a social code in Scandinavian countries that opposes individualism, ambition, and vanity.
What part of speech is Law of Jante?
Law of Jante is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce Law of Jante?
Law of Jante is pronounced /ˈjæntə/.

Words near Law of Jante in the dictionary

  1. law of double negation
  2. law of excluded middle
  3. law of Hobson-Jobson
  4. law of holes
  5. law of identity
  6. Law of Jante
  7. law of large numbers
  8. law of love
  9. law of majestas
  10. law of markets
  11. law of nations

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Law of Jante (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: “Law of Jante.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/law_of_jante. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.