Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun An
ethnic orracial slur typically caricaturing some identifiable (often physical) feature of the group being derided.
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
From prefix ethno- and phaulism; phaulism is derived from the Greek word φαύλισμα from φαυλίζειν "to vilify" from φαῦλος "bad, unjust."
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Examples
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That's just an excuse to kill (plug in your own ethnophaulism).
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That's just an excuse to kill (plug in your own ethnophaulism).
qroqqa commented on the word ethnophaulism
A disparaging name for an ethnic group (Gk phaul- "cheap, light, mean"). Term invented by A. A. Roback.
Mencken used the extraordinary term 'achthronym' for the same meaning; a subsequent (1963) edition combined the two in this extraordinary sentence:
The English have fewer strangers within their gates, and hence their native armamentarium is smaller, and not a few of the achthronyms (or ethnophaulisms) they use come from the United States.
'Achthronym' seems to be both non-existent apart from this use of Mencken's, and unetymologizable. There is no Greek achthr- in Liddell & Scott; the nearest is achth- "burden", possibly intended figuratively; nor is there a chthr- for it to be the privative of.
February 12, 2009
rolig commented on the word ethnophaulism
I wonder if Mencken coined achthronym from "anthronym" + the German sigh of exasperation Ach!
February 12, 2009