Materialism Meaning
/məˈtɪɹiəlɪzəm/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounConstant concern over material possessions and wealth; a great or excessive regard for worldly concerns.
nounThe philosophical belief that nothing exists beyond what is physical.
Sentence Examples
You grew up with too much materialism, and now you envy your neighbours.
Historical materialism is a pseudoscience.
The pillars of the new world are materialism, egoism and idiocy.
CEFR Practice Quiz
Her constant craving for new expensive luxury goods clearly demonstrated her ____.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The philosopher criticized the extreme ____ that he believed was corrupting modern society.
Word Origin & History
Borrowed from French matérialisme. By surface analysis, material + -ism.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"We accept that a third of the population live on the poverty line. We accept that only a handful of the most exceptional of the children of the poor will make it through to a third-level education. We accept massive examples of greed and dishonesty in public life. We except the values of materialism. What do we expect then—to be left un-harassed, we who have all the privileges?"
— 2010, Nuala O'Faolain, “An Ugly Little War”, in A More Complex Truth:
"The result of the labours of philosophy appeared to be a total scepticism on the most important subjects of hu man duty and expectation. The irregular fears of a future state had been supplanted by the materialism of Epicurus; and this system—if system it may be called, which left them without a God, a providence, a morality, or a retribution—was the fashionable philosophy of the more cultivated classes."
— 1814, Joseph S. Buckminster, The Sermons by the Late Rev. Joseph S. Buckminster, Sermon I:
"Medical materialism seems indeed a good appellation for the too simple-minded system of thought which we are considering. ... All such mental over-tensions, it says, are, when you come to the bottom of the matter, mere affairs of diathesis (auto-intoxications most probably), due to the perverted action of various glands which physiology will yet discover."
— 1902, William James, “Lecture I”, in The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature […] , New York, N.Y.; London: Longmans, Green, and Co. […], →OCLC:
"With the rise of Cartesian and Hobbesian mechanical philosophy and materialism in the 16th and 17th centuries, the classical argument for the immateriality of the intellect and will was simply ignored and then forgotten."
— 2015 January 26, Michael Egnor, “Aristotle on the Immateriality of Intellect and Will”, in Evolution News, retrieved 11 Jan 2021:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
Her constant craving for new expensive luxury goods clearly demonstrated her ____.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The philosopher criticized the extreme ____ that he believed was corrupting modern society.