Antisemitic

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Involving negative attitudes or actions directed against those of Jewish heritage
2. Marked by animosity, discrimination, or prejudice aimed at Jewish communities
3. Showing hostility or prejudice against people who are Jewish or their cultural practices

Etymology: The surprising part is how recent the word is. "Antisemitic" was coined in German in 1860 as "antisemitisch," and it is credited to Moritz Steinschneider, a Jewish scholar. Its first use in that sense was not a slur or a political slogan but a piece of scholarly terminology, and it reached English by translation of the German form. The structure is a plain combination: "anti-" meaning "against," joined to "Semitic," the adjective from "Semite," a term that comes from Shem, one of Noah's sons in the Book of Genesis, and was applied in the nineteenth century to a family of languages including Hebrew and Arabic. Because "Semitic" was a linguistic label, the compound originally sounded like something a philologist might write, which makes its later sense all the more troubling. Modern usage carries the sense "hostile toward Jews," even though the word was formed from a term for language families. The shift from a neutral scholarly coinage to a word for prejudice happened after the term was adopted in political and popular speech.

Synonyms: prejudiced, bigoted, discriminatory, hostile, xenophobic

Antonyms: tolerant, accepting, inclusive, welcoming, respectful