barbarism

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈbɑː(ɹ)bəɹɪz(ə)m/
• (General American) enPR: bärʹbə-rĭz'm, IPA^(key): /ˈbɑɹbəˈɹɪzm̩/

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barbarism (countable and uncountable, plural barbarisms)

1. A barbaric act.

   These barbarisms can not be allowed to continue; they must be crushed or civilization will collapse.

2. The condition of existing barbarically.
   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter V, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, pages 42–43:

     Like dancing, it is a remnant of ancient barbarism—fit for the days of the Chaldeans or the Babylonians, when people were only amused through their eyes—the sole entertainment of which savage nations are susceptible.

   • 1879, William Tecumseh Sherman, Address to the Michigan Military Academy:

     War is at best barbarism... Its glory is all moonshine.

3. A word hybridizing Ancient Greek and Latin or other heterogeneous roots.
4. An error in language use within a single word, such as a mispronunciation.
   • 2002, Hyman, Bad Grammar in Context, New England Classical Journal, 29, p. 94-101

     In the jargon of the ancient grammarian, penacilin would be a barbarism.

Borrowed from French barbarisme. By surface analysis, barbar +‎ -ism.

barbarism n (plural barbarisme)

1. barbarism