Meanings
- uncountableAn Iranian nationalist ideology centered on the rule and legacy of the Pahlavi dynasty (1925–1979).
Pahlavism professed the importance of the 1906 Constitution but did not advocate the type of free elections characterizing the West's liberal democracies.
2019, Zhand Shakibi, Pahlavi Iran and the Politics of Occidentalism, page 1462 more examples
Certainly, the attempts by the Shah to generate intermediate institutions of legitimation in the post-1960 period were a failure; the Majlis and the parties in it were phantoms, and neither Pahlavism, as a national ideology stressing the pre-Islamic past, nor authoritarian concepts of farmandari or 'commandism' were widely accepted.
1981, Journal of International Affairs, volume 35, page 195Like Kemalism in Turkey, Pahlavism in monarchical Iran, and the Third World's postcolonial emancipatory movements, such as Baathism in Syria and Iraq, Heydarism is modernist.
2017, The New Geopolitics of the South Caucasus, page 42
Origin
- Old Persian𐎱𐎼𐎰𐎺
- Middle Persian[Term?]
- Classical Persianپَهْلَو
- EnglishPahlavism
From Classical Persian پَهْلَو (pahlaw) [the root of Classical Persian پَهْلَوِی (pahlawī), from Middle Persian [Term?] (/pahlaw/), from Old Persian 𐎱𐎼𐎰𐎺 (p-r-θ-v /Parθavaʰ/)] + -ism.
More words from Classical Persian, Middle Persian, Old Persian
Full word history & related roots →Translations
French pahlavisme
- pahlavismeTranslations
Italian pahlavismo
- pahlavismoTranslations
Portuguese pahlavismo
- pahlavismoTranslations
Spanish pahlavismo
- pahlavismoTranslations
Cite this entry
Pahlavism. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Pahlavism
“Pahlavism.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Pahlavism. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Pahlavism,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Pahlavism.
Source: Pahlavism on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.