Philistine

Quick meaning: Philistine is a noun meaning (derogatory) A person who is ignorant or uneducated; specifically, a person who lacks appreciation of or is antagonistic towards art or culture, and who has pedestrian tastes.

Meaning

(derogatory) A person who is ignorant or uneducated; specifically, a person who lacks appreciation of or is antagonistic towards art or culture, and who has pedestrian tastes.

More Meanings

1. (derogatory) Ignorant or uneducated; specifically, lacking appreciation for or antagonistic towards art or culture, and having pedestrian tastes.

Example Sentences

"Oh, the Philistine! The boorish Philistine!" he murmured; [...]

Mr. [Matthew] Arnold has no patience with the middle-class ‘Philistines’ the dullards and haters of light, who care only for what is material and practical.

The object of such an aesthetic education is not the creation of a society of aesthetes. Aesthetes, in that pejorative sense, are as unbalanced as philistines.

If it were not for this purging effect wrought upon our minds by culture, the whole world, the future as well as the present, would inevitably belong to the Philistines.

Word Forms

• philistines

Synonyms for philistine

Depending on context, synonyms include heathen, philistinic, philistinish, anti-intellectual, lowbrow, nonintellectual.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include anti-intellectual, lowbrow, nonintellectual, pentapolis, uncircumcised, philosemite.

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