The story
- French · borrowed fromvandalisme
- English todayvandalism
Borrowed from French vandalisme, first used by Henri Grégoire to decry the pillage and destruction of art in the course of the French Revolution, in reference to the East Germanic tribe of the Vandals, which looted Rome in 455. By surface analysis, vandal + -ism.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.