Word.ws English Dictionary

zabernism

zabernism noun: the misuse or abuse of military authority; bullying.

Noun

zabernism (uncountable)

  1. (obsolete) The misuse or abuse of military authority; bullying.

Origin of zabernism

From the German name for Saverne, a town in Alsace. Originated from an incident in 1913 involving an overzealous soldier who wounded a cobbler for laughing at him, ultimately triggering an intervention from the army who took over the power from local authorities.

Questions about zabernism

What does zabernism mean?
Zabernism means the misuse or abuse of military authority; bullying.
What part of speech is zabernism?
Zabernism is a noun.

Words near zabernism in the dictionary

  1. Zabel
  2. Zabelle
  3. Zabels
  4. Zaber
  5. Zaberma
  6. zabernism
  7. Zabian
  8. Zabianism
  9. Zabians
  10. zabiba
  11. zabibas

Source and license

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