populist

UK/ˈpɒp.jʊ.lɪst/US/ˈpɑ.pjə.lɪst/

adjectiveB2+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,240 of 15,258mostly written

Populist means appealing to ordinary people against the elite. A populist leader, populist policies, populist rhetoric.

Political scientists use it as a description rather than an insult: a populist claim divides society into a pure people and a corrupt elite and says the leader speaks for the first. Almost nobody applies the word to themselves.

Definitions of populist

1adjectivepopulistAppealing to ordinary people against the elite.B2+
“The populist candidate claimed to speak for forgotten workers against the bankers and bureaucrats.”

populist is a political style.

Where it comes from

From populus + -ist.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Politics & Society

Practise this word

populist in the wild

The People's Party, usually known as the Populist Party or simply the Populists, was an agrarian populist political party in the United States in the late 19th century.
Populist Party (United States)
Right-wing populism, also called right populism and national populism, is a political ideology that combines right-wing politics with populist rhetoric and themes.
Right-wing populism
Left-wing populism is a political ideology that combines left-wing politics with populist rhetoric and themes.
Left-wing populism
Recurring themes for left-wing populists include economic democracy, social justice, and skepticism of globalization.
Left-wing populism

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

← Vocabulary