conservatismn.
/kənˈsəːvətɪz(ə)m/, U.S. /kənˈsərvədɪzəm/ 1.
a. The holding of conservative principles; the tendency to resist great or sudden change, esp. in politics; adherence to traditional values and ideas. Sometimes opposed to liberalism n.
ΘΚΠ
the world > time > change > absence of change, changelessness > maintaining state or condition > [noun] > resistance to change
reservancy1630
Toryism1786
unprogressiveness1829
conservatism1832
fossilism1861
stand-pattism1903
passéism1943
Luddism1967
Ludditism1971
1832 Lancaster Gaz. 23 June We look upon this event as most important, and auspicious to the cause of conservatism.
1844 E. P. Whipple in N. Amer. Rev. 59 53 That shrinking timidity of conservatism, which fears every thing new, for the reason that it is new.
1879 F. W. Farrar Life & Work St. Paul I. vi. xx. 366 The stiff conservatism of a few Rabbis.
1925 Cent. Mag. Jan. 427/2 It is the function of liberalism to sting conservatism into an intelligent and tolerant attitude.
1934 L. Charteris Boodle i. 10 A slight tinge of the old-fashioned conservatism which characterised his style of dress clung equally limpet-like to the processes of his mind.
1962 F. O'Connor Let. 12 Dec. in Habit of Being (1980) 502 I have just been to Texas and southern Louisiana and I witnessed some radical conservatism and some radical liberalism too.
1971 B. Sidran Black Talk i. 22 In focusing too strongly on the notion of life-after-death, the church little by little became the purveyor of do-nothing conservatism in this life.
2003 J. Peterson & M. A. Pollock Europe, Amer., Bush i. 18 An ‘America first’ conservatism redolent of the early days of the Reagan presidency.
b. spec. (frequently with capital initial). The doctrine or practice of the Conservative Party of Great Britain, or a similar party elsewhere; Toryism.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > rule or government > politics > British politics > British party politics > [noun] > Toryism or conservatism
Toryism1693
conservatism1832
conservativeness1832
conservativism1834
Toriness1890
society > authority > rule or government > politics > party politics > groups or attitudes right to left > [noun] > the right > attitudes of
servilism1821
conservatism1832
conservativeness1832
conservativism1834
hunkerism1845
rightism1934
right-wingism1951
1832 Times 17 Oct. 3 The reformers, disgusted by Cobbett's coarseness and want of principle on the one hand, and Loyd's modified conservatism on the other.
1844 B. Disraeli Coningsby I. ii. v. 212 Conservatism discards Prescription, shrinks from Principle, disavows Progress.
1862 Standard 24 Mar. Let no one presume to identify Conservatism with reaction.
1955 Times 24 May 15/5 These largely mining areas are of little use to Conservatism save as battle courses for blooding new candidates.
1982 Times 10 Nov. 12/6 [A Tory group] which believes ‘there is more to conservatism than economic policy’.
1996 W. Hutton State we're In (rev. ed.) ii. 29 She used the state aggressively to attack the post-war settlement..revoking her predecessors' bargain, which she regarded as..a betrayal of conservatism.
2. Biology. The tendency to resist evolutionary change.
ΚΠ
1902 New Phytologist 1 29 It [sc. Cryptogamic wood] has only survived as long as it has, because of the conservatism of the foliar bundles.
1913 Amer. Naturalist 47 709 The theory of natural selection, at least in its extreme form, can not therefore well be regarded as a satisfactory explanation for structural conservatism.
1973 S. E. Luria Life iv. 54 The catastrophic consequences of such mutations must in fact have been the key to the conservatism of the genetic code.
2007 R. G. B. Reid Biol. Emergences v. 200 Segmental conservatism remains strong enough for the least experienced eye to see that it's still some kind of insect.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, November 2010; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1832