Germanismn.
/ˈdʒəːmənɪz(ə)m/, U.S. /ˈdʒərməˌnɪzəm/ 1. An idiom, grammatical construction, word, or other linguistic feature particular to German, esp. one used or adopted in another language.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > language > languages of the world > Indo-Hittite > [noun] > Indo-European > Germanic > German > idiom of
Germanism1611
1611 T. Coryate Crudities sig. Ff8 After I had duly considered this pretie Germanisme.
1654 S. Hartlib True & Readie Way to learn Latine Tongue 14 Barbarismes and Germanismes do every where stain the purity of Latine Speech.
1723 tr. A.-T. Limojon de Saint-Didier Hermetical Triumph Annot. 29 It were a Germanism, whose Sense will be taken right by a German who understands Latin; but not easily by a Frenchman, who is not acquainted with the Germanism's, which often happen amongst the Germans in the Latin Tongue.
1749 T. Ruddiman Animadversions on Late Pamphlet 58 That able Critick and Commentator..vouches classical Authority for what some have fancied to be Germanisms.
a1773 Ld. Chesterfield Let. 16 Apr. (ed. 2) IV. 177 It is full of Latinisms, Gallicisms, Germanisms, and all isms but Anglicisms.
1832 T. P. Thompson Exercises (1842) II. 2 Besides, it [sc. the ‘Tour of a German Prince’] lacks Germanity; the Germanisms in the whole are not greater than might be collected in a three years' residence.
1892 Nation (N.Y.) 26 May 401/1 Many-jointed Germanisms stretch their unwieldy length and sprawl over every page.
1949 J. C. Snow tr. M. Hélin Hist. Medieval Lat. Lit. 66 It is very hazardous to draw on the argument of so-called Romanisms or Germanisms which are found throughout medieval Latin.
1985 Amer. Speech 60 228 Germanisms are most numerous in eastern Pennsylvania.
2005 D. Guido in T. Adam Germany & Americas 75/1 The number of germanisms increased in the second half of the eighteenth century with an influx of mineralogical, chemical, and geological terms such as quartz and graphite.
2.
a. (a) German ideas, philosophy, or attitudes; German ways of thinking or acting; (b) attachment to or adoption of these.
ΚΠ
1758 Things as they Are 62 Hanover, without which, it is not very probable, that Great Britain would have so eagerly sued for an alliance to a power, of which not many years ago it scarce knew the name, till the Germanism of our politics had made it so familiar to us.
1759 Duchess of Marlborough Let. to Great Man 54 This was making a most cruel use of the people's confidence in you, and of their just spirit of resentment against France, which by this adulteration of it with Germanism, was degenerated into the absurdity of hating the French more than they loved themselves.
1760 E. Thurlow Refut. Let. 20 The Opinion..delivered with such ingenuous Freedom as an English subject is entitled to; nay, provoked to now, when it flagrantly appears that an encroaching Spirit of Germanism means to blast every Branch of the British Oak.
1841 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. 50 154 Thou art alone practical, and despisest idealism, and mysticism, and Germanism.
1845 J. H. Newman Ess. Devel. Christian Doctr. 71 The same philosophical elements, received into a certain sensibility or insensibility to sin, and its consequences, leads [sic] one mind to the Church of Rome; another to what, for want of a better word, may be called Germanism.
1884 Jrnl. Educ. (Univ. of Boston School of Educ.) 19 24 What our country needs of Germanism in education is the profound, accurate, broad, and genial habits.
1936 J. Gunther Inside Europe 222 He developed the implacable patriotism of the frontiersman, the exile. Only an Austrian could take Germanism so seriously.
1992 Jewish Chron. 7 Feb. (Lit. Suppl.) p. ii/1 Felix Mendelssohn, the composer, also behaved like a convert to Germanism; it was he who revived Bach and German Lutheran music; Schumann and Brahms did not feel the need for recreating a German tradition.
2007 R. J. Siebert in M. R. Ott Future of Relig. Introd. 23 Hitler applied, incorporated and concretized the aristocratic principle of nature in three loves–for Germanism, for the workers and for peace–and in three hates–against Judaism, against Communism and against France.
b. German quality, character, or style.
ΘΚΠ
the world > people > nations > native or inhabitant of Europe > native or inhabitant of Germany > [noun] > characteristic of
Germanism1807
Germanity1821
Germanicism1828
Teutonism1854
Teutonity1877
Teutonicism1901
1807 W. Taylor in Ann. Rev. 5 507 A something of Germanism clings about the style of these two first cantos.
1857 A. T. Drane Life St. Dominic ii. i. 249 For those who find the Germanism of blessed Suso a little rugged in his English dress, Monsieur E. Cartier has furnished a modern French version which is everything they can desire.
1890 W. James Princ. Psychol. I. xi. 445 I should like to have quoted from it, but the Germanism of its composition makes quotation quite impossible.
1940 J. A. Hawgood Trag. German-America ii. v. 128 So large and influential had been the German influx of the thirties, and it had subsequently been added to, that right up to the beginning of the twentieth century Belleville is declared to have retained much of its Germanism.
2008 Washington Post (Nexis) 18 Apr. c7 The underlying theory of this concert is that the 10 players could assume them like veils, leaving off Frenchness to assume Germanism, and so on.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2012; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
<
n.1611