hegemony

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek ἡγεμονία (hēgemonía, “leadership, authority, rule”),^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} from ἡγεμών (hēgemṓn, “leader, guide, commander”),^[3][2][8][7] from ἡγέομαι (hēgéomai, “to lead”).^[9][10][2] The OED allows that it may instead have come through post-classical Latin hegemonia, recorded from 1513 or earlier.^[11] Etymonline and Klein suggest that the Greek verb first meant "to track down (the way)", and trace it to Proto-Indo-European *sāg- (“to seek out, track down”),^[3][7] the root of seek;^[3][10][2] Klein compares Latin sāgiō (“to perceive keenly”).^[7][12] Related words in German, French and Italian came later: Hegemonie (1765), hégémonie (1840) and egemonia (1799).^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Political or military leadership or predominance, especially of one state over others: 1567, in John Maplet's Greene Forest.^[11][8][2] Etymonline dates it to the 1560s and Dictionary.com to 1560–70.^[3][13]

Semantic evolution

At first the word was used of ancient Greece, of the leading position of one city-state among others, as of Athens in Attica or Thebes in Boeotia.^[3][5][14] Hoad notes that it was rare before the 19th century.^[12] Its use for modern states dates from 1849, at first of Prussia's place among the German states,^[3] and Wiktionary notes that the early 19th-century use was influenced by German Hegemonie.^[9] From 1832 a hegemony could also be a state that held such a position.^[11] From the mid-19th century the word was extended from politics to social and cultural predominance, of one group or one set of ideas within a society (1854),^[11] and since 1969 it could name the dominant group itself.^[11] In the late 20th century, in Third World usage, it came to mean especially domination by the Soviet Union over weaker neighbours.^[5] The derivative hegemonism, a policy of political domination, is recorded from 1965.^[2]

Timeline

• 1567 – political or military predominance, leadership.^[11][8][2]
• 1832 – a state that holds such predominance.^[11]
• 1849 – of modern states, first of Prussia among the German states.^[3]
• 1854 – social or cultural predominance of a group or set of ideas.^[11]
• 1969 – a dominant social or cultural group.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. Dominance or controlling influence of one state or power over others, especially in politics, economics or war.^[15][8][11]
2. Predominance of one social class or group, or of one set of ideas, within a society: the cultural hegemony of the capital.^[15][11]
3. A state or group that holds such predominance.^[11][5]

Word family

• hegemonic
• hegemonism
• hegemonist
• antihegemony

Related words

• hegemon
• seek
• exegesis

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
10. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
14. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
15. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins