exoticism

English

Etymology

From exotic +‎ -ism.

Noun

exoticism (usually uncountable, plural exoticisms)

  1. (uncountable) The state of being exotic.
    • 2004 January 25, Mark Feeney, “A piece of Asia's past, in living color”, in The Boston Globe‎[1]:
      For all the exoticism of the images, they possess a phenomenal immediacy and even contemporaneity.
  2. Something exotic.
    • 1985 February 14, Jane Nickerson, “Chinese New Year”, in The Ledger‎[2]:
      Chinese restaurants, now dotting this peninsula like azaleas at Cypress Gardens, have introduced thousands of us Occidentals to the delights of moo goo gai pan. As a result, attempts to produce such exoticisms in our own homes have multiplied.
    • 2000 July 20, Bernard Holland, “LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL REVIEW; Messiaen's Nature Worship Calls on Bird Song and Faith”, in The New York Times‎[3]:
      The distribution of instruments is fairly traditional, but with piccolo trumpet and bass trombone to explore extremes, and bells, gongs and tam-tams to variegate the sound. Such exoticisms as the xylorimba (Richard Fitz) and glockenspiel (Jeffrey Milarsky) are introduced along with the sounds of shifting sand.
  3. (linguistics) A word changed in spelling or pronunciation to look or sound more exotic or foreign.
    • The English pronunciations of Beijing and Chumash with French-like j and ch are exoticisms, as is the spelling T'Sou-ke for the original Anglicization Sooke.

Usage notes

Much more common than synonyms exoticness and exoticity.[1]

Synonyms

Translations

References

  1. ^ exoticism, exoticness, exoticity at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.

Anagrams

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