victorianism
Etymology
From Victorian + -ism.
victorianism means the behaviour or beliefs of the Victorians, especially prudery. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 86 out of 100.
Why this word is great
VICTORIANISM — [Noun] The distinctive attitudes, beliefs, and social mores characteristic of British society during the reign of Queen Victoria, marked by a public dedication to propriety, industry, and moral certainty. From Victorian (pertaining to the reign of Queen Victoria) + -ism (forming nouns of practice, system, or doctrine). Unlike "prudery" (which denotes a specific, censorious modesty) or "modernism" (which denotes a conscious, fractured break from tradition), Victorianism is the encompassing system—a grand, deliberate project of ordering a world shaken by industrial and scientific revolution. It is the heavy velvet drapery drawn against the soot of industrial furnaces, the elaborate etiquette of a tea service performed in a house vibrating from a passing locomotive, and the precise, suffocating layers of black crêpe worn for a mandated period of mourning—a monumental effort to assert permanence against the very tide of change it helped to unleash.
noun
- The behaviour or beliefs of the Victorians, especially prudery.“These [sex manuals] reflect an age in which, it appears, the only hope for heterosexual love is technical know-how. Supposedly designed to free the reader from Victorianism and guilt, these books constitute clumsy, self-conscious attempts to liberate the reader.”
- An expression or idiom characteristic of Victorian times.