Word: bastardism Part of Speech: noun Etymology: From bastard + -ism. 1. The condition of being born out of wedlock; bastardy. Labels: uncountable Example: So much in those days for royal bastardism. Example: At least in the case of the election of that illustrious bastard who took the name of Clement VII, the cardinal electors were given to understand that their favorite candidates bastardy was not quite uncontroverted, or uncontrovertible; but in the case of the clergymen alluded to, no doubt could be entertained as to their bastardism on account of the civil marriage of their parents . 2. A tendency to produce bastards; lack of chastity. Labels: uncountable Example: A full one-third, and oftentimes more, is expended upon officials and in defraying establishment charges; the remainder is wasted upon the most worthless and vicious of the population, and in sustaining bastardism. Example: These included "Bastardism", the alleged tendency among the French of begetting illegitimate children, with which they might be expected to swamp Britain and "to weaken the State" itself. 3. Racial impurity; that state or quality of being mixed-race. Labels: uncountable Example: The old man of the family is a mulatto, the mother an Indian; only one of the race has any tolerable pretensions to whiteness of complexion, and this must be the effect of bastardism or of some wild anomalous lusus naturae, or whim of nature, as the philosophers call it, which however has no influence upon his low manners and native stupidity. Example: We may well shudder in thinking of the results of such marriages from the triple view of criminality, bastardism of the race, and wretched homes. 4. Sexual reproduction involving different species. Labels: uncountable Example: It is generally well known that all efforts of bastardism to propagate are sterile, and we need not witness the efforts of the horse and mule trying to create a new and better species. Example: That the seed is not responsible seems certain, since when "bastardism " does occur among swedes, the appearance of the plant differs markedly from that of one affected with cabbage-top. 5. An unnatural combination; a mixture of things that do not belong together. Labels: countable, uncountable Example: The Dukes of Savoy did not reside on the sunny side of the Alps till about the middle of the sixteenth century, and even then, far from becoming naturalized to the climate of Italy, they gave Piedmont that tinge of French bastardism, against which the newly arisen national spirit is now so successfully reacting. Example: The innovations and bastardisms wrought into Masonry since 1844, by that unfortunate book, exceed, when summed up, the innovations and bastardisms from all other sources united. 6. Ideological concern with whether someone is related by blood. Labels: uncountable Example: Bastardism is everywhere. In the Tiny Tears commercial a three-year-old tells her dolly not to cry because "she's her very own baby"? Don't you see? It's Bloodspeak, right in the language: Comes by it honestly. Example: You could say that bastardism is my ideology, even though María Galindo despises the notion of ideology because its authoritarian and academic and, therefore, embedded in the hierarchical structures of patriarchy. 7. An act or quality of being bastardly; contemptibleness, cruelty, or lack of proper behavior. Labels: countable, uncountable Example: By God, indeed; I cannot stand your bastardism, Jacques,” and I took my blanket in hand, dashed from the room, and made my bed in the hallway. Example: His worldview has several euphemistic aliases— "rugged individualism," "egoism," or "social Darwinism," to name a few— though in his case, "pitiless, selfish bastardism” may be more accurate.