communism
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: [ˈkɒm.ju.nɪ.zm̩]
ipa: [ˈkɑ.mju.nɪ.zm̩]
ipa: [ˈkɑ.mjə.nɪ.zm̩]
ipa: [ˈkɔm.jə.nɪ.zm̩]
note: Indic
ipa: /kəmˈjunɪzəm/
Forms: form: communisms
form: Communism
Etymology: Etymology tree
Old Latin comoinis
Latin commūnis
Old French comun
French commun
Proto-Hellenic *-íďďō
Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō)
Proto-Indo-European *-mos
Proto-Indo-European *-mós
Ancient Greek -μός (-mós)
Ancient Greek -ισμός (-ismós)der.
Latin -ismusbor.
French -isme
French communismebor.
English communism
A borrowing from French communisme, which was formed from commun (“common”) (from Latin commūnis) and the suffix -isme (“-ism”). By surface analysis, commune + -ism.
Senses: examples: text: I want to gather together about twenty souls and sail away from this world of war and squalor and found a little colony where there shall be no money but a sort of communism as far as necessaries of life go, and some real decency.
ref: 1932, D. H. Lawrence, The Letters of D.H. Lawrence, Edited by A. Huxley, page 219:
synonyms: word: aspheterism
glosses: Any far-left political ideology or philosophy advocating holding the production of resources collectively, especially by seizing it through revolution.
glosses: Any political social system that implements a communist political philosophy.
glosses: The international socialist society where classes, money, and the state no longer exist.
examples: text: This tax plan is communism!
glosses: Any left-wing ideology, government regulations, or policies promoting a welfare state, nationalisation, etc.
examples: text: A recent survey of 633 South Korean scientists found not only that communism was the Mertonian norm they thought most respected in practice (Kim and Kim 2018, 9), but also that younger scientists’ replies showed evidence of ‘mounting tension between the commercialisation of academic science and the norm of communalism’ (Kim and Kim 2018, 19). Our focus on scientific communism and its relationship to commercial research may thus reflect the concerns of working scientists.
ref: 2022 January 26, Liam Kofi Bright, Remco Heesen, “To Be Scientific Is To Be Communist”, in Social Epistemology, volume 37, number 3, →DOI:
glosses: Readiness to share scientific findings (the first of the Mertonian norms).
examples: text: Rational expectations econometrics extends a communism of statistical models to include a “sharing with nature” that is an essential input into making maximum likelihood or generalized method of moments be good estimators.
ref: 2025 November 23, Thomas Sargent, “Macroeconomics after Lucas”, in Journal of Political Economy, volume 133, number 11, →DOI:
glosses: communality, sharedness.
Derived terms: word: anarchocommunism
english: anarchist communism, free communism, libertarian communism
translation: anarchist communism, free communism, libertarian communism
word: anarcho-communism
english: anti-communism
translation: anti-communism
word: anticommunism
word: barracks communism
word: council communism
word: cryptocommunism
word: cybercommunism
word: Eurocommunism
word: Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism
word: gay race communism
word: goulash communism
word: Islamocommunism
word: market communism
word: military communism
word: neocommunism
word: noncommunism
word: Obamunism
word: para-communism
word: postcommunism
word: procommunism
word: scientific communism
word: Serbo-Communism
word: war communism
Related terms: commie
communal
communalism
commune
communist
communistic
communistical
communistically
decommunisation
res communis
authoritarianism
capitalism
collectivism
Hitlerism
individualism
leftism
Leninism
liberalism
Maoism
Marxism
Marxism-Leninism
National Socialism
Nazism
socialism
Stalinism
statism
totalitarianism
Trotskyism