materialism

Etymology

It is formed from English material + -ism,^[2][3][4] probably after materialist.^[2] Etymonline takes it from French matérialisme,^[4] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Dictionary.com from New Latin materialismus, formed from Late Latin materialis with -ismus.^[5][6][7] The OED compares German Materialismus, recorded from 1720 after Clarke's use, and dates the French word only from 1754.^[2] It rejects two earlier dates found in Lalande's philosophical dictionary: Leibniz (1702) wrote only the French word for "materialist", and Boyle (1674) only the English one.^[2] The adjective comes from Old French material and directly from Late Latin materialis, from materia (“matter, stuff, wood, timber”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The philosophical theory that nothing exists except matter and its movements: 1678, in Cudworth's True Intellectual System of the Universe.^[2] Older dictionaries date the word later: Merriam-Webster Unabridged to 1696,^[5] Merriam-Webster's Collegiate to 1733,^[8] and the 1989 edition of the OED and Etymonline to 1748.^[9][4]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline notes that the philosophical doctrine naturally led to the sense of an outlook based on purely material interests, so that by the late 19th century the word was used for any low view of life, as the opposite of idealism.^[4] The OED's first quotation for an emphasis on the material at the expense of the spiritual is from Henry Mackenzie's The Man of Feeling (1771);^[2][10] the Shorter Oxford dates the sense of a way of life centred on possessions and comfort to the mid 19th century,^[3] and Etymonline finds it for a life built on consumer goods by 1930.^[4] Narrower uses followed in theology (1822), of an excessive stress on the material side of the sacraments, and in art (1850), of a stress on the physical aspect of things painted.^[2][3] A rare sense, the material universe itself, is recorded only in 1817.^[2][10]

Timeline

• 1678 – the theory that nothing exists except matter.^[2][10]
• 1771 – an emphasis on material things at the expense of spiritual values.^[2][10]
• 1817 – the material universe (rare, obsolete).^[2]
• 1822 – in theology, excessive emphasis on the material aspect of the sacraments.^[2][3]
• 1850 – in art, a stress on the physical aspect of objects painted.^[2][3]
• by 1930 – a way of life built on consumer goods.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A strong interest in money and possessions rather than in spiritual or moral values: He grew tired of the materialism of city life.^[11][5][2]
2. (philosophy) The doctrine that matter is the only reality and that mind, feelings and all other phenomena are functions or results of it.^[11][5][2]
3. A doctrine that the highest values of life lie in material well-being and progress.^[5]
4. (ethics) The rejection of any religious or supernatural account of things.^[11]
5. (art) A tendency to stress the physical aspect of the objects represented.^[2][3]
6. (theology, disparaging) Excessive emphasis on the material aspect of the sacraments.^[2][3]

Word family

• materialist
• materialistic
• materialistically
• antimaterialism
• dialectical materialism
• historical materialism

Related words

• material
• matter
• materialize
• immaterial

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
8. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c d Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
11. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins