Word.ws English Dictionary

paternalism

UK/pəˈtɜːnəlɪzəm/US/pəˈtɝnəlɪzəm/

paternalism noun: the treatment of people in a fatherly manner, especially by caring for them and sometimes being stern with them.

Noun

paternalism (countable and uncountable, plural paternalisms)

  1. The treatment of people in a fatherly manner, especially by caring for them and sometimes being stern with them.
    • Libertarian paternalism is the view that, because the way options are presented to citizens affects what they choose, society should present options in a way that “nudges” our intuitive selves to make choices that are more consistent with what our more deliberative selves would have chosen if they...2012 January, Steven Sloman, “The Battle Between Intuition and Deliberation”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 1, archived from the original on 08 Jan 2012, page 74
  2. The guiding of people in a manner that limits their autonomy in the name of their own well-being.

paternalism meaning in Vietnamese

paternalism in Vietnamese

treatment of people in a fatherly manner
chủ nghĩa gia trưởng

Forms of paternalism

pluralpaternalisms

Origin of paternalism

From paternal + -ism.

Questions about paternalism

What does paternalism mean?
Paternalism means the treatment of people in a fatherly manner, especially by caring for them and sometimes being stern with them.
What is paternalism in Vietnamese?
Paternalism in Vietnamese is chủ nghĩa gia trưởng. See Paternalism meaning in Vietnamese.
What part of speech is paternalism?
Paternalism is a noun.
How do you pronounce paternalism?
Paternalism is pronounced /pəˈtɜːnəlɪzəm/ (UK).
What is the plural of paternalism?
The plural of paternalism is paternalisms.

Words near paternalism in the dictionary

  1. paternalisation
  2. paternalise
  3. paternalised
  4. paternalises
  5. paternalising
  6. paternalism
  7. paternalisms
  8. paternalist
  9. paternalistic
  10. paternalistically
  11. paternalists

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: paternalism (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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