racism
noun
Simple meaning
Prejudice or discrimination based upon race or ethnicity.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
raysihzuhmSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɹeɪsɪzəm
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Prejudice or discrimination based upon race or ethnicity; (countable) an action of such discrimination.
The prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior to members of other races
The belief that there are distinct human races with inherent differences which determine their abilities, and generally that some are superior and others inferior.
The policies, practices, or systems (e.g. government or political) promoting this belief or promoting the dominance of one or more races over others.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- General and technical use
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Prejudice or discrimination based upon race or ethnicity; (countable) an action of such discrimination.
Used this way, racism is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Gentle
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use racism
- “We must continue to fight racism and promote equality for all people.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.