Etymology

abderitism

ab·de·rit·ism
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Today it means: The theory that humanity's morality will never advance beyond its present state. Full definition →

German Abderitismus ← Ancient Greek Ἀβδηρῑ́της
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The story

  1. Ancient Greek · derived fromἈβδηρῑ́της“Abderite”
  2. German · derived fromAbderitismus
  3. English todayabderitism

From German Abderitismus, from Abderit (“foolish person”) + -ismus (“-ism”), from Ancient Greek Ἀβδηρῑ́της (Abdērī́tēs, “Abderite”) because of the Abderites’ famed foolishness and stupidity in classical Greece. It is equivalent to Abderite + -ism. The German term was coined by the philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) in Der Streit der Fakultäten (The Conflict of the Faculties, 1798).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.