Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Syncretism |
SyncretismNoun1. The union (or attempted union) of different systems (especially in religion or philosophy); "a syncretism of material and immaterial theories". 2. The fusion of originally different inflected forms (resulting in a reduction in the use of inflections). Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "syncretism" was first used: 1618. (references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Disagreement | Misjoining, misjoinder; syncretism, intrusion, interference; concordia discors. |
Heterodoxy | Sectarism, sectarianism; noncomformity; secularism; syncretism, religious sects. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Syncretism is common in literature, music, representational art and other expressions of culture.
Some religious movements have embraced syncretism while others have rejected the practice as devaluing real distinctions. Syncretism was a major feature of Greek and Roman paganism; imagining themselves as common heirs to a very similar civilization, they identified characters from Greek mythology with similar characters from Roman mythology. See Roman/Greek/Etruscan equivalency in mythology The fits were sometimes good, sometimes not as good; Diana is a better match for Artemis than, say, Ares is for Mars.
From these identifications, the classical world acquired the habit of identifying gods of even more disparate mythologies with their own. The Egyptian god Amun deveolped into Zeus Ammon after Alexander the Great conquered Egypt. The Greek gods Apollo and Dionysus were imported into Rome; given this precedent, the Romans saw no hindrance to the worship of Isis and Osiris (Egyptian) or Mithras (from Hinduism or Zoroastrianism). Likewise, when the Romans encountered Celts and Teutons, they mingled these Northern gods with their own, creating Apollo Sucellos (Apollo the Good Smiter) and Mars Thingsus (Mars of the war-assembly), among many others.
More recent religious systems that exhibit marked syncretism include Vodun and Santeria, which analogize various Yoruba and other African gods to the Roman Catholic pantheon of saints.
Examples of strongly-syncretist movements include postmodernism, theosophy and the New Age movement.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Syncretism."
Crosswords: Syncretism |
| English words defined with "syncretism": syncretic, syncretical, syncretistic, syncretistical. (references) |
| Domain | Title |
Books |
|
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Syncretism" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Syncretism" is used about 16 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 100% | 16 | 87,710 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
syncretism | 25 |
in music syncretism | 5 |
religious syncretism | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "syncretism"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | sinkretizëm. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | التوفيق بين المعتقدات. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | синкретизъм, еклектизъм (eclecticism). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Farsi | همتاءی , تلفیق (Compilation, Incorporation, Reconciliation), تالیف عقایدمختلف , اعتقادبه توحیدعقاید. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | syncrétisme. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | szinkretizmus, egyeztetés (agreement, checking, checking up, collation, conciliation, coordination, correlation, harmonizing, reconciliation). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | '合 , シルボン紙 (aluminium and sicilicum alloy, lens-cleaning paper, oscilloscope, Singapore, Singapore dollar, singer, singer-songwriter, sink, sinker, sirocco, Sylvia, synchronize, synchrotron, syrup, thin, think tank, think tanker, xylophone). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | しゅう"う (assembly, gathering, meeting, set), シンクレティズ . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | yncretismsay sincretismo. (various references) sincretism. (various references) синкретизм. (various references) sinkretizam. (various references) sincretismo. (various references) синкретизм. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Greek | 700 BCE-300 CE | synkretismos. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "syncretism": syncretisms. (additional references) | |
| |
"Syncretism" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: sincretism, synchretism, synchrotism, syncretsism. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "c-e-i-m-n-r-s-s-t-y" | |
-1 letter: centrisms. | |
-2 letters: centrism, cisterns, cysteins, cystines, minsters, misentry, systemic, trimness. | |
-3 letters: cistern, cretins, cystein, cystine, encysts, estrins, incests, insects, inserts, metrics, mincers, minster, minters, missent, misters, mystics, remints, sinters, smiters, stymies. | |
-4 letters: citers, crests, cretin, crimes, crises, cyesis, encyst, enmity, estrin, incest, inerts, insect, insert, insets, inters, merits, metric, mincer, minces, miners, minter, misers. | |
| Words containing the letters "c-e-i-m-n-r-s-s-t-y" | |
+1 letter: syncretisms. | |
+3 letters: polycentrisms, streptomycins. | |
+5 letters: aerodynamicists, cholestyramines, reactionaryisms, semicrystalline, symmetricalness. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Commercial 4. Usage Frequency | 5. Expressions: Internet 6. Translations: Modern 7. Translations: Ancient 8. Derivations | 9. Anagrams 10. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
