Antisemitism
/ˌæn.tɪˈsɛm.ɪ.tɪz.əm/noun
Hostility, prejudice, or discrimination directed against Jews as an ethnic, religious, or racialized group.
Did you know?The term was coined in German in 1879 by Wilhelm Marr as a supposedly modern, racial-political alternative to older religious language for anti-Jewish prejudice.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*h₂ent-i
“Opposite, facing, or in front of”
Ancient Greek
Greek
ἀντί (anti)
“Against, opposite, or in return”
Biblical Hebrew
Hebrew
שֵׁם (Šēm)
“Shem, the biblical ancestor-name from which the scholarly term Semitic was formed”
1780s
German
semitisch
“Semitic; relating to a proposed family of languages and peoples associated with Shem”
1879
German
Antisemitismus
“A political ideology or movement hostile to Jews, coined by Wilhelm Marr”
20th Century–Modern English
English
antisemitism
“Prejudice, hostility, or discrimination against Jews”
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