populism
populism noun: a political doctrine or philosophy that proposes that the rights and powers of ordinary people are exploited by a privileged elite, and supports their struggle to overcome this.
Noun
populism (countable and uncountable, plural populisms)
- A political doctrine or philosophy that proposes that the rights and powers of ordinary people are exploited by a privileged elite, and supports their struggle to overcome this.
- In the early 21st century, the tide of populism in Western countries has been primarily driven by demographic shifts, deindustrialization, inflation, a hostile cultural climate, and a collapse in social cohesion.2025 May 2, Endeavour, “Against Slopulism”, in Counter-Currents, archived from the original on 21 Jun 2025
- The practice of appealing to the interests of the common people.
- It is not crass populism or majoritanianism that ratifies the legitimacy of the polity or the administration.2006, Prasanta Chakravarty, Like Parchment in the Fire, page 104
populism meaning in Hindi, Bengali, Sinhala and Tagalog
populism in Hindi
- a political doctrine or philosophy
- लोकलुभावनवाद loklubhāvanvād
populism in Bengali
- a political doctrine or philosophy
- জনতুষ্টিবাদ jonotuśṭibad
populism in Sinhala
- a political doctrine or philosophy
- ජනතාවාදය janatāwādaya
populism in Tagalog
- a political doctrine or philosophy
- populismo
More languagesFewer languages
- populism in Arabic
- شَعْبَوِيَّة šaʕbawiyya
- populism in Malay
- populisme
- populism in Indonesian
- populisme
- populism in Thai
- ประชานิยม bprà-chaa-ní-yom
- populism in Vietnamese
- chủ nghĩa dân tuý
Examples of populism in a sentence
- The rise of populism in an age of celebrification also plays into the coarsening of discourse.
- Keep in mind, such thoughts are blasphemy in the world of crackerbarrel populism.
- Populism is the new model of cool; elitists, rather than teeny-boppers or bandwagon-jumpers, are the new squares.
Forms of populism
| plural | populisms |
|---|
Origin of populism
From Latin populus + English -ism.
Words formed from populism
Questions about populism
- What does populism mean?
- Populism means a political doctrine or philosophy that proposes that the rights and powers of ordinary people are exploited by a privileged elite, and supports their struggle to overcome this.
- What is populism in Hindi?
- Populism in Hindi is लोकलुभावनवाद (loklubhāvanvād). See Populism meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is populism?
- Populism is a noun.
- What is the plural of populism?
- The plural of populism is populisms.
Words near populism in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: populism (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-populism.wav.
Cite this entry: “populism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/populism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.