imperialism
Imperialism is a policy and ideology of extending a state's power beyond its own borders through conquest, colonial rule, or economic and cultural dominance over other territories.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Definitions
- In political use: a doctrine and practice by which a state seeks to widen its sphere of influence, acquire colonies, or keep supremacy over other nations and territories.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - In historical narrative: a system of imperial or colonial rule in which a metropole holds military, administrative, or economic control over lands outside the state's core.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - As a critical label: an attitude or policy charged with aggressive domination, exploitation of colonial resources, and the subordination of weaker states to a great power's interests.
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Examples
- The modern history textbook links imperialism with the expansion of European powers in the nineteenth century.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - The essay separates imperialism based on direct colonial administration from a form that works through control of markets, credit and firms.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - At the student conference imperialism was set against anti-colonial movements and the defence of small-state sovereignty.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - His critique of imperialism focused mainly on unequal trade between the metropole and the colonies.
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Usage
In everyday English imperialism names a great-power policy, a historical system of empire, or a broad charge of domination. In scholarly and historical writing it helps to say which strand you mean: ancient empire, nineteenth- and twentieth-century colonialism, control of markets and capital, or a pejorative shorthand. Naming the strand keeps description apart from moral judgment.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)The 1913 Webster already prints Imperialism as the power or character of an emperor, imperial authority, and the spirit of empire, and quotes C. H. Pearson on Roman imperialism dividing the world. The same edition lists Imperialist, Imperiality and Imperialize. Skeat (1910) links English empire to Old French empire and Latin imperium, a noun kin to the verb imperare, then records imperial-ism and imperial-ist as derivatives under IMPERIAL. Those English facts also explain the Polish cognate imperializm.
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Editorial team; facts: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913; W. W. Skeat, An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, 1910, open sourceFrequent pairings are colonial imperialism, economic imperialism, critique of imperialism, imperialist expansion and imperialist policy. A supporter is an imperialist; the adjective is imperialist or, less often, imperialistic. News writing likes the contrast imperialism versus anti-imperialism, where the second term marks opposition to great-power expansion and a defence of weaker states' independence.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)In the 1921 Arct foreign-word dictionary the Polish lemma Imperializm (masculine) sits beside Imperialista and Imperium. The gloss points to rule based on military force, an idea of world dominion, and a drive to form an empire. That cluster proves the cognate was already current in interwar Polish. We treat Arct only as lexical evidence: we note that the lemma existed and rephrase the general idea in our own words, never as a copied gloss for this site.
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Editorial team; facts: M. Arct, Slownik wyrazow obcych, 9th ed., Warsaw 1921, open sourceWord forms
Regular English noun, usually uncountable; the plural imperialisms is used for different strands or national versions of the policy.
word forms
| przypadek | forma |
|---|---|
| singular | imperialism |
| plural | imperialisms |
Word forms: Editorial team
Collocations
- colonial imperialism
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - economic imperialism
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - critique of imperialism
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - imperialist expansion
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - imperialist policy
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Synonyms · Antonyms
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Etymology
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W. W. Skeat, An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed., Oxford 1910, open sourcealso
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913, open sourcealso
M. Arct, Slownik wyrazow obcych, 9th ed., Warsaw 1921, open sourceRelated words
- imperialist , noun for a supporter; also adjective
- imperial , adjective in the same word family (Skeat, Webster)
- empire , noun: the base word in the family (Skeat under EMPIRE)
- imperialize , verb: to make imperial (Webster 1913)
- colonialism , thematically related noun
Related entries
Questions and answers
What does imperialism mean?
Speakers use the term for a state's drive for power beyond its borders through conquest, colonial administration, or economic and cultural dominance. In history it spans ancient empires and modern colonialism; in everyday speech it can also be a sharp label for aggressive domination.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Where does the word imperialism come from?
The base is Latin imperium and imperare, continued through French and English empire and imperial. Skeat maps that line under EMPIRE and IMPERIAL, including imperial-ism; Webster 1913 already prints Imperialism, Imperialist and Imperialize as lemmas. The -ism ending marks the political and doctrinal sense inside the same stock.
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W. W. Skeat, An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed., Oxford 1910, open sourceHow is imperialism different from colonialism?
Colonialism usually names the settlement or administration of colonies by a metropole. Imperialism is broader: it can include colonial rule but also informal control through markets, credit and military pressure without formal annexation. Writers still blur the pair, so context decides how sharp the contrast is.