Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Exclusive adherence to, dedication to, or interest in one's own group, party, sect, or nation.
- noun A principle of allowing each state in a nation or federation to act independently of the central authority, especially in promoting its own economic interests.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Attention or adherence to or exclusive interest in one's own special interests, party, or state; individual, partizan, or national exclusiveness.
- noun Attention to particulars or details.
- noun In theology, the doctrine that divine grace is provided only for the particular individuals chosen by God to be its recipients, as opposed to the doctrine that his grace is freely and equally offered to all upon condition of its acceptance in and by faith.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun rare A minute description; a detailed statement.
- noun (Theol.) The doctrine of particular election.
- noun (German Politics) Devotion to the interests of one's own kingdom or province rather than to those of the empire.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun theology The principle that only certain people are chosen by God for
salvation . - noun An exclusive focus on a
particular group, area, sect etc. - noun politics The principle that individual states, races of a
federation etc. may act independently of a central authority.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a focus on something particular
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Universalism vs particularism is an academic debate for people who are bored with masturbating.
Matthew Yglesias » Universalism and Particularism in Neoconservatism 2010
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French-Canadian particularism is only the most dramatic expression of a particularisin that afflicts the whole of our country.
What is Canada? 1969
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This, and not French-Canadian particularism, is at the root of our present difficulties.
What is Canada? 1969
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French-Canadian particularism is only the most dramatic expression of a particularisin that afflicts the whole of our country.
What is Canada? 1964
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This, and not French-Canadian particularism, is at the root of our present difficulties.
What is Canada? 1964
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Webster ceased to be a particularist after 1824 and became a nationalist before 1830, it was because the interests of New England had undergone a similar change; or, if Calhoun deserted about the same time the cause of nationalism and became the most ardent of sectionalists, it was also because the interests of his constituents, the cotton and tobacco planters of the South, had become identified with particularism, that is, States rights.
Expansion and Conflict William E. Dodd
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Lamott is cited as a writer who captures well the style of narrative nonfiction called "particularism", coined by Howard Freeman.
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It was only in Franconia that all territorial patriotism or "particularism" was shaken off and the idea of the unity of the German peoples received as a political goal.
German Culture Past and Present Ernest Belfort Bax 1890
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State; that the State alone could represent the bonds of union between its subjects; that federalism and "particularism" were the enemies of progress, and the State was the only proper initiator of further development.
Mutual Aid; a factor of evolution Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin 1881
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The so-called "particularism" of Israel's idea of God was in fact the real strength of Israel's religion; it thus escaped from barren mythologisings, and became free to apply itself to the moral tasks which are always given, and admit of being discharged, only in definite spheres.
Prolegomena Julius Wellhausen 1881
vanishedone commented on the word particularism
In moral philosophy, the doctrine that success involves 'getting it right' case by case, rather than through the application of general rules: associated particularly with Jonathan Dancy, author of 'Ethics Without Principles'.
October 21, 2007