-ism is a suffix in many English words, originally derived from the Ancient Greek suffix , and reaching English through the Latin-ismus, and the French -isme. It means "taking side with" or "imitation of", and is often used to describe philosophies, theories, religions, social movements, artistic movements and behaviors. The suffix "-ism" is neutral and therefore bears no connotations associated with any of the many ideologies it identifies; such determinations can only be informed by public opinion regarding specific ideologies. The concept of an -ism may resemble that of a grand narrative.
History
The first recorded usage of the suffix ism as a separate word in its own right was in 1680. By the nineteenth century it was being used by Thomas Carlyle to signify a pre-packaged ideology. It was later used in this sense by such writers as Julian Huxley and George Bernard Shaw. In the United States of the mid-nineteenth century, the phrase "the isms" was used as a collective derogatory term to lump together the radical social reform movements of the day and various spiritual or religious movements considered non-mainstream by the standards of the time. Southerners often prided themselves on the American South being free from all of these pernicious "Isms". So on September 5and 9, 1856, the Examiner newspaper of Richmond, Virginia ran editorials on "Our Enemies, the Isms and their Purposes", while in 1858 "Parson" Brownlow called for a "Missionary Society of the South, for the Conversion of the Freedom Shriekers, Spiritualists, Free-lovers, Fourierites, and Infidel Reformers of the North". In the present day, it appears in the title of a standard survey of political thought, Today's Isms by William Ebenstein, first published in the 1950s, and now in its 11th edition. Merriam-Webster Dictionary declared in December 2015, this word -ism to be the Word of the Year. A suffix is the Word of the Year because a small group of words that share this three-letter ending triggered both high volume and significant year-over-year increase in lookups at Merriam-Webster.com. Taken together, these seven words represent millions of individual dictionary lookups.
