Word.ws English Dictionary

philistines

philistines is the plural of philistine.

Meaning of philistine

Noun

philistine (plural philistines)

  1. (derogatory) A person who is ignorant or uneducated; specifically, a person who lacks appreciation of or is antagonistic towards art or culture, and who has pedestrian tastes.
    • [W]hen he [Christoph Friedrich Nicolai] wrote against [Immanuel] Kant's philosophy, without comprehending it; and judged of poetry as he judged of Brunswick mum, by its utility, many people thought him wrong. A man of such spiritual habilitudes is now by the Germans called a Philister, Philistine...1824, Thomas Carlyle, “Goethe”, in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, edited by H[enry] D[uff] Traill, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship and Travels: Translated from the German of Goethe […] (The Works of...
    Synonyms:
    heathen

See all 6 meanings of philistine

Noun capitalized: Philistines

Philistines

  1. (plural) plural of Philistine

Phrases with philistines

Questions about philistines

What is philistines the plural of?
Philistines is the plural of philistine.
What part of speech is philistines?
Philistines is a noun.

Words near philistines in the dictionary

  1. Philistian
  2. Philistians
  3. Philistim
  4. philistine
  5. philistinely
  6. philistines
  7. Philistinian
  8. Philistinians
  9. philistinic
  10. philistinish
  11. philistinism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: philistines (page history and authors); Philistines (page history and authors); philistine (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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