socialism
noun
Simple meaning
Any of different economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
sohshuhlihzuhmSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsoʊʃəlɪzəm
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
A system of social and economic equality in which there is no private property.
A system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state.
A political theory advocating state ownership of industry
Any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.
Any of a group of later political philosophies such democratic socialism and social democracy which do not envisage the need for full state ownership of the means of production nor transition to full communism, and which are typically based on principles of community decision making, social equality and the avoidance of economic and social exclusion, with economic policy giving first preference to community goals over individual ones.
An economic system based on state ownership of capital
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A system of social and economic equality in which there is no private property.
Used this way, socialism is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in finance or economics 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
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: system of social and economic equality in which there is no private property
Antonyms
Sense: system of social and economic equality in which there is no private property
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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.