authenticism means A belief in the superiority of the authentic over the inauthentic. It carries an Arena rating of 1355, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, authenticism ranks #1,884 of 17,151 for The Improbable, #5,681 of 17,138 for Most Incisive Words, #7,821 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #8,354 of 17,163 for Funniest Words.
Why “authenticism” is a great word
AUTHENTICISM — [Noun] The belief in the superiority of the genuine, original, or real over the fabricated, derivative, or false. From authentic (from Middle English authentik, from Old French autentique, from Latin authenticus, from Ancient Greek αὐθεντικός (authentikós, "original, genuine")) + the suffix -ism (denoting a system, principle, or ideological movement). Unlike authenticity (which is a state of being) or traditionalism (which venerates established custom), authenticism is a polemical creed that makes a virtue of provenance. It is the collector’s disdain for a reproduction, the pilgrim’s quest for an unmediated experience, the purist’s contempt for a perfect synthetic diamond—a modern conviction born precisely when its object began to vanish into a convincing replica of itself.
Etymology
From authentic + -ism.
noun
- A belief in the superiority of the authentic over the inauthentic.e.g.“Sinclair Lewis claimed that American letters exemplified a divorce of intellectual life from authenticism and reality.” — 1994, Allene Cooper, “Science and the Reception of Poetry in Postbellum American Journals”, in American Periodicals, Vol. 4, p. 44 n4:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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