Ideology Meaning
/ˌaɪ.diːˈɒl.ə.d͡ʒiː/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounDoctrine, philosophy, body of beliefs or principles belonging to an individual or group.
nounThe study of the origin and nature of ideas.
Sentence Examples
This is the ideology to which my speech is written.
It goes without saying that the ideology is behind the times.
CEFR Practice Quiz
His political ____ made him fight for equal rights, rejecting any discrimination.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The dominant ____ of the era shaped the way people viewed government and individual rights.
Word Origin & History
Borrowed from French idéologie, from idéo- + -logie (equivalent to English ideo- + -logy). Cognate with, but not derived from, idea. Coined 1796 by Antoine Destutt de Tracy. Modern sense of “doctrine” attributed to use of related idéologue (“ideologue”) by Napoleon Bonaparte as a term of abuse towards political opponents in early 1800s.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"This article examines how these three scholars use the term "Occitan" and ideologies of Occitanism to characterize southern France, and how such ideologies reflect the intellectual traditions in which they write."
— 1987 April, Vera Mark, “In Search of the Occitan Village: Regionalist Ideologies and the Ethnography of Southern France”, in Anthropological Quarterly, volume 60, number 2, Washington, D.C.: George Washington University, →DOI, →ISSN, pages 64–70:
"What is unbearable, in fact, is the feeling, 13 years after 9/11, that America has been chasing its tail; that, in some whack-a-mole horror show, the quashing of a jihadi enclave here only spurs the sprouting of another there; that the ideology of Al Qaeda is still reverberating through a blocked Arab world whose Sunni-Shia balance (insofar as that went) was upended by the American invasion of Iraq."
— 2014 November 17, Roger Cohen, “The horror! The horror! The trauma of ISIS [print version: International New York Times, 18 November 2014, p. 9]”, in The New York Times:
"Ideology constantly gets in the way. For the Government, unions are militant "Trots" out to cause political trouble. For the unions, the private sector is a grasping, evil leech. Neither is true."
— 2022 August 24, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Rail strikes deadlock”, in RAIL, number 964, page 3:
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CEFR Practice Quiz
His political ____ made him fight for equal rights, rejecting any discrimination.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The dominant ____ of the era shaped the way people viewed government and individual rights.