phalanstery

Noun

phalanstery (plural phalansteries)

1. An association or community organized on the plan of Charles Fourier, with living space divided hierarchically and higher pay for those carrying out unpopular tasks.
   • [S]he seemed to him a revelation of a class, and a multitude of socialistic figures, of names and episodes that he had heard of, grouped themselves behind her. She looked as if she had spent her life on platforms, in audiences, in conventions, in phalansteries, in séances; in her faded face there...1885–1886, Henry James, The Bostonians […], London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published 16 February 1886, →OCLC

   Synonyms:

   phalange, phalanstère, phalanx

2. The dwelling house of a Fourierite community.
   • When Hollingsworth and Priscilla retreat to a cottage at the end of the novel, they are spurning not only reformatories and phalansteries but also boarding-houses, tenements, and hotels.2005, Andrew Loman, "Somewhat on the Community-System": Representations of Fourierism in the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Taylor & Francis (Routledge), page xxiv