Misoneism

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˌmɪsəˈniː.ɪzəm/

Definitions

1. A profound aversion to anything unfamiliar or modern characterizes a mindset that resists change, particularly one that opposes innovation across various spheres
2. This term highlights an intense hostility toward new concepts or practices, illustrating a broader disdain for progress or transformation in society and culture
3. An intense dislike for anything that is new or different reflects a broader resistance to change, particularly in terms of societal norms or advancements

Etymology: Cesare Lombroso, the Italian criminologist, coined "misoneismo" to describe a supposed instinctive dread of novelty, and the word reached English from Italian. Its making is a neat piece of Greek assembly: "miso-" comes from Greek "mîsos", meaning hatred, while "neo-" comes from "néos", meaning new, and the suffix "-ism" carries the sense of a doctrine or attitude. Put together, the parts literally describe hatred of the new. The compound is a deliberate scientific coinage rather than an ancient word, so no Greek speaker ever used it. Lombroso's version of the idea sat within the late nineteenth-century theories he was developing about human nature and social behaviour, which is why the term has a clinical, almost diagnostic tone compared with everyday words for resistance to change.