Philistine

• POS: Adjective, Noun
• HYPHEN: Phil=is=tine

CIDE DICTIONARY

Philistine, n. [L. Philistinus, Heb. Phlishthī, pl. Phlishthīm.].

•  A native or an inhabitant of ancient Philistia, a coast region of southern Palestine.  [1913 Webster]
•  A bailiff.  Swift.  [1913 Webster]
•  A person deficient in liberal culture and refinement; one without appreciation of the nobler aspirations and sentiments of humanity; one whose scope is limited to selfish and material interests.  M. Arnold.  [1913 Webster]

Philistine, a. 

•  Of or pertaining to the Philistines.  [1913 Webster]
•  Uncultured; commonplace.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

Philistine, n. & adj.
--n.
1 a member of a people opposing the Israelites in ancient Palestine.
2 (usu. philistine) a person who is hostile or indifferent to culture, or one whose interests or tastes are commonplace or material.
--adj. hostile or indifferent to culture, commonplace, prosaic.

Derivative

philistinism n.

Etymology

ME f. F Philistin or LL Philistinus f. Gk Philistinos = Palaistinos f. Heb. pelist{icirc}

DEVIL DICTIONARY

Philistine

n. One whose mind is the creature of its environment, following the fashion in thought, feeling and sentiment. He is sometimes learned, frequently prosperous, commonly clean and always solemn.

THESAURUS

Philistine

Babbitt, Babbittish, Gothic, Middle American, anal character, arriviste, barbarous, bookless, boor, bounder, bourgeois, burgher, cad, callous, calloused, campy, carnal, carnal-minded, case-hardened, churl, clown, common, commonplace, compulsive character, conformer, conformist, conventionalist, deceived, earthly, earthy, epicier, flinty, formalist, functionally illiterate, general, grammarless, groundling, guttersnipe, hard, hardened, hardhearted, heathen, high-camp, homely, homespun, hoodwinked, hooligan, ill-bred fellow, ill-educated, illiterate, impervious, indurated, insensitive, inured, kitschy, led astray, looby, lout, low fellow, low-camp, lowbrow, material, materialistic, methodologist, middle-class type, misinformed, misinstructed, mistaught, model child, mucker, mundane, nonintellectual, nouveau riche, ordinary, organization man, pachydermatous, pagan, parrot, parvenu, peasant, pedant, perfectionist, plastic person, plebeian, pop, popular, precisian, precisianist, profane, proof against, public, ribald, rough, roughneck, rowdy, rude, ruffian, secular, sheep, square, steeled against, steely, stony, teenybopper, temporal, terrestrial, thick-skinned, trimmer, unbooked, unbookish, unbooklearned, unbriefed, uncultivated, uncultured, unedified, uneducated, unerudite, unguided, uninstructed, unintellectual, unlearned, unlettered, unliterary, unread, unrefined, unscholarly, unschooled, unspiritual, unstudious, untaught, untutored, upstart, vernacular, vulgarian, vulgarist, worldly, yes-man, yokel

ROGET THESAURUS

Philistine

Commonalty

N commonality, commonalty, democracy, obscurity, low condition, low life, low society, low company, bourgeoisie, mass of the people, mass of society, Brown Jones and Robinson, lower classes, humbler classes, humbler orders, vulgar herd, common herd, rank and file, hoc genus omne, the many, the general, the crowd, the people, the populace, the multitude, the million, the masses, the mobility, the peasantry, king Mob, proletariat, fruges consumere nati, demos, hoi polloi, great unwashed, man in the street, mob, rabble, rabble rout, chaff, rout, horde, canaille, scum of the people, residuum of the people, dregs of the people, dregs of society, swinish multitude, foex populi, trash, profanum vulgus, ignobile vulgus, vermin, riffraff, ragtag and bobtail, small fry, commoner, one of the people, democrat, plebeian, republican, proletary, proletaire, roturier, Mr, Snooks, bourgeois, epicier, Philistine, cockney, grisette, demimonde, peasant, countryman, boor, carle, churl, villain, villein, terrae filius, son of the land, serf, kern, tyke, tike, chuff, ryot, fellah, longshoreman, swain, clown, hind, clod, clodhopper, hobnail, yokel, bog-trotter, bumpkin, plowman, plowboy, rustic, hayseed, lunkhead, chaw-bacon, tiller of the soil, hewers of wood and drawers of water, groundling, gaffer, loon, put, cub, Tony Lumpkin, looby, rube, lout, underling, gamin, rough, pot- wallopper, slubberdegullion, vulgar fellow, low fellow, cad, curmudgeon, upstart, parvenu, skipjack, nobody, nobody one knows, hesterni quirites, pessoribus orti, bourgeois gentilhomme, novus homo, snob, gent, mushroom, no one knows who, adventurer, man of straw, beggar, gaberlunzie, muckworm, mudlark, sans culotte, raff, tatterdemalion, caitiff, ragamuffin, Pariah, outcast of society, tramp, vagabond, bezonian, panhandler, sundowner, chiffonnier, Cinderella, cinderwench, scrub, jade, gossoon, Goth, Vandal, Hottentot, Zulu, savage, barbarian, Yahoo, unlicked cub, rough diamond, barbarousness, barbarism, boeotia, ignoble, common, mean, low, base, vile, sorry, scrubby, beggarly, below par, no great shakes, homely, homespun, vulgar, low-minded, snobbish, plebeian, proletarian, of low parentage, of low origin, of low extraction, of mean parentage, of mean origin, of mean extraction, lowborn, baseborn, earthborn, mushroom, dunghill, risen from the ranks, unknown to fame, obscure, untitled, rustic, uncivilized, loutish, boorish, clownish, churlish, brutish, raffish, rude, unlicked, barbarous, barbarian, barbaric, barbaresque, cockney, born within sound of Bow bells, underling, menial, subaltern, below the salt, dummodo sit dives barbarus ipse placet.

Ignorance

N ignorance, nescience, tabula rasa, crass ignorance, ignorance crasse, unfamiliarity, unacquaintance, unconsciousness, darkness, blindness, incomprehension, inexperience, simplicity, unknown quantities, x, y, z, sealed book, terra incognita, virgin soil, unexplored ground, dark ages, smattering, sciolism, glimmering, dilettantism, bewilderment, incapacity, pedantry, charlatanry, charlatism, Philister, Philistine, ignorant, nescient, unknowing, unaware, unacquainted, unapprised, unapprized, unwitting, unweeting, unconscious, witless, weetless, a stranger to, unconversant, uninformed, uncultivated, unversed, uninstructed, untaught, uninitiated, untutored, unschooled, misguided, unenlightened, Philistine, behind the age, shallow, superficial, green, rude, empty, half-learned, illiterate, unread, uninformed, uneducated, unlearned, unlettered, unbookish, empty-headed, dizzy, wooly-headed, pedantic, in the dark, benighted, belated, blinded, blindfolded, hoodwinked, misinformed, au bout de son latin, at the end of his tether, at fault, at sea, caught tripping, unknown, unapprehended, unexplained, unascertained, uninvestigated, unexplored, unheard of, not perceived, concealed, novel, ignorantly, unawares, for anything, for aught one knows, not that one knows, Int, God knows, Heaven knows, the Lord knows, who knows, nobody knows, ignorance never settles a question, quantum animis erroris inest!, small Latin and less Greek, that unlettered small-knowing soul, there is no darkness but ignorance, ignorance, nescience, tabula rasa, crass ignorance, ignorance crasse, unfamiliarity, unacquaintance, unconsciousness, darkness, blindness, incomprehension, inexperience, simplicity, unknown quantities, x, y, z, sealed book, terra incognita, virgin soil, unexplored ground, dark ages, smattering, sciolism, glimmering, dilettantism, bewilderment, incapacity, pedantry, charlatanry, charlatism, Philister, Philistine, ignorant, nescient, unknowing, unaware, unacquainted, unapprised, unapprized, unwitting, unweeting, unconscious, witless, weetless, a stranger to, unconversant, uninformed, uncultivated, unversed, uninstructed, untaught, uninitiated, untutored, unschooled, misguided, unenlightened, Philistine, behind the age, shallow, superficial, green, rude, empty, half-learned, illiterate, unread, uninformed, uneducated, unlearned, unlettered, unbookish, empty-headed, dizzy, wooly-headed, pedantic, in the dark, benighted, belated, blinded, blindfolded, hoodwinked, misinformed, au bout de son latin, at the end of his tether, at fault, at sea, caught tripping, unknown, unapprehended, unexplained, unascertained, uninvestigated, unexplored, unheard of, not perceived, concealed, novel, ignorantly, unawares, for anything, for aught one knows, not that one knows, Int, God knows, Heaven knows, the Lord knows, who knows, nobody knows, ignorance never settles a question, quantum animis erroris inest!, small Latin and less Greek, that unlettered small-knowing soul, there is no darkness but ignorance.