Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An attitude, custom, or feature that seems characteristically German.
  • noun A linguistic feature of German, especially a German idiom or phrasing that appears in a language other than German.
  • noun Esteem for Germany and emulation of German ways.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The quality of being German in feelings or sentiment; regard for or love of German institutions, interests, and ideas.
  • noun An imitation of German speech; an idiom or phrase copied from the German or resembling German in construction.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun An idiom of the German language.
  • noun A characteristic of the Germans; a characteristic German mode, doctrine, etc.; rationalism.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun countable A word or idiom of the German language (that has been borrowed by another language).
  • noun The culture and customs of the Germanic people (or tribes).

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a custom that is peculiar to Germany or its citizens

Etymologies

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Examples

  • But without the most searching consideration of all possible consequences, the favourable together with the unfavourable, there would have been no blank cheque for a precipitate German rebirth nor for schemes of European union, through which a resurgent Germanism is to be curbed and held.

    Britain Versus Europe—The Schuman Plan and German Revival 1950

  • Germanism, that is, to bring all German-speaking nations under one scepter.

    The Story of Russia R. Van Bergen

  • Solzhenitsyn would refrain from condemning "all law" as Germanic and alien not only because he approves of legal protests among other sorts, but also because he does not consider "Germanism" alien to his own values.

    Before and After Solzhenitsyn Stern, David N. 1976

  • But it may be accounted to him for righteousness that he supported Lord Stanhope's National Portrait Gallery Bill in 1856, and entered a vigorous protest against the vile "Germanism" of the title "Art Treasures Exhibition" instead of "Treasures of Art" for the show at Manchester in 1857.

    Mr. Punch`s history of modern England, Volume I -- 1841-1857 Charles Larcom 1921

  • Boys are greatly influenced by their surroundings, and in those days every one about me never spoke of Transcendentalism or "Germanism," or even

    Memoirs Charles Godfrey Leland 1863

  • Yet there is another side to Germanism which is prone to the ideal and the mystical, and bears still the trace of those lovely legends of mediaeval growth to which we have adverted.

    The Works of Frederich Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller 1782

  • Yet there is another side to Germanism which is prone to the ideal and the mystical, and bears still the trace of those lovely legends of mediaeval growth to which we have adverted.

    Aesthetical Essays of Frederich Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller 1782

  • Just as Metternich was very wary of pan-Germanism, so should modern diplomats beware of pan-Hispanicism.

    Matthew Yglesias » Carter on Gaza 2009

  • Just as Metternich was very wary of pan-Germanism, so should modern diplomats beware of pan-Hispanicism.

    Matthew Yglesias » Carter on Gaza 2009

  • But then the guns of August rang out, and by 1917 the GAA had been identified by Wheeler as an organization whose “leaders urge its members to vote only for those who stand for Germanism and oppose Prohibition.”

    LAST CALL DANIEL OKRENT 2010

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