rugged individualism
noun
Simple meaning
Individualism in social and economic affairs.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ruhguhdihndihvihdoouhlihzuhmSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɹʌɡədɪndɪvɪˈduəlɪzəm
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
politicsUS politics
Individualism in social and economic affairs; belief not only in personal liberty and self-reliance but also in free competition
politicsUS politics
The ideal in which an individual is more successful by their own work without any outside assistance, especially from the government.
politicsUS politics
The ideal in which social and economic interactions are more focused on the individual self, personal liberty, and independence.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Individualism in social and economic affairs; belief not only in personal liberty and self-reliance but also in free competition
Used this way, rugged individualism is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in finance or economics and government or politics contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Finance/economics
- Government/politics
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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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.