worldview

See also: world-view and world view

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

A calque of German Weltanschauung, equivalent to world +‎ view.

Pronunciation

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Noun

worldview (plural worldviews)

  1. A person's personal view of the world and how one interprets it; any ingroup's or society's mainstream view thereof.
    Near-synonym: cosmovision
    • 2023 November 17, Blake Montgomery, “White House condemns Elon Musk’s ‘abhorrent’ antisemitic tweets”, in The Guardian‎[1], →ISSN:
      “You have said the actual truth,” Musk tweeted in reply. X users, including many in the tech industry, lambasted the posts, though other users agreed with Musk and said they were gleefully watching him sink into their hateful worldview.
    • 2025 May 21, Manisha Krishnan, “IVF Clinic Bombing Suspect Was Linked to ‘Anti-Life’ Ideology. Experts Fear Its Growing Influence”, in WIRED‎[2], archived from the original on 21 May 2025:
      The bombing comes over a week after ISD released a report about how nihilistic worldviews are fueling violence in the US and Europe.
  2. The totality of one's beliefs about reality.
    Near-synonym: cosmology
  3. A general philosophy or view of life.
    The Elizabethan worldview differs from a modern worldview.
    • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light:Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, page 7:
      Human beings feel safe and secure when they can stand confidently in the center of things, either in the center of an age or in the center of a class of people with a common world-view, but when they come to an edge, they feel nervous and unsettled.
    • 1986, Piotr Buczkowski, Andrzej Klawiter, editors, Theories of Ideology and Ideology of Theories‎[3], Rodopi, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 57:
      The Enlightment worldview, which considered the order of "Nature" as a basis and, at the same time, the subject of explorations of scientific natural sciences, has, at the same time, considered this order as a criterion of the artistically-aesthetic qualities of art. From an "ideological" point of view, it liberated art from its feudal religious and courtly servitude.
    • 2009 June 2, Ed Gungor, What Bothers Me Most about Christianity: Honest Reflections from an Open-Minded Christ Follower, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 13:
      Some worldviews are based in a belief in God; others are not. Buddhism, Taoism, atheism, Marxism, and existentialism are examples of worldviews that are nontheistic.

Synonyms

Translations

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