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View synonyms for

moralistic

[mawr-uh-lis-tik, mor-]

adjective

  1. explaining or interpreting something in terms of right and wrong, especially in a self-righteous or tiresome way.

    They reject both the moralistic view of addiction as willful evil and the medical model of addiction as a disease.

  2. emphasizing morality, especially unduly; moralizing.

    She frowns on moralistic preaching that focuses on ethical duty divorced from the gospel of grace and gratitude.

  3. concerned with regulating the morals of others, as by imposing censorship or other restrictions.

    By trying to protect people from their own mistakes, moralistic laws prevent them from learning responsibility.

  4. relating to or being a philosopher or philosophy chiefly concerned with principles of morality.

    During this period of antiquity, a number of moralistic philosophies emerged at the same time in different parts of the world.



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Other Word Forms

  • moralistically adverb
  • antimoralistic adjective
  • overmoralistic adjective
  • pseudomoralistic adjective
  • quasi-moralistic adjective
  • quasi-moralistically adverb
  • semimoralistic adjective
  • unmoralistic adjective
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Word History and Origins

Origin of moralistic1

First recorded in 1840–45; moralist ( def. ) + -ic ( def. )
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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

To achieve some of these much-needed reforms, we must shift the cultural narrative — peeling back the moralistic and judgment-laced rhetoric around poverty, savings and retirement — and acknowledge existing structural barriers to savings.

From

He invited controversy, however, not by advocating a more amoral, realpolitik foreign policy but by delivering a finger-wagging, highly moralistic lecture about, among other things, how our allies are insufficiently liberal about free expression.

From

New York and New England went on to become competing centers of power and ideology: one pluralistic and globally-minded; the other moralistic, monocultural and, well, puritanical.

From

For too long, research-backed solutions to overdose deaths have been eschewed in favor of untested, ideological, punitive and moralistic measures.

From

And the language in the official recall petition strikes a moralistic tone.

From

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moralistmorality