Philosophy & ThoughtGreek → English
Cynicism
/ˈsɪnɪsɪzəm/noun
The belief that people act only from self-interest, and the sour attitude that follows.
The Greek roots
κύων
kýōn
dog
κυνικός
kynikós
dog-like
Literally: “dog-likeness”
The story of the word
Diogenes slept in a storage jar, ate in the marketplace, and answered to the nickname the Dog. Ancient sources split on where the school's name came from: some point to the Cynosarges gymnasium in Athens where Antisthenes taught, others to the deliberate dog-like shamelessness that was the philosophy's method. The Cynics rejected convention on principle and were not sneering at anyone. The modern souring, distrust of other people's motives, sets in from the 1600s.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1670s
Same family
cyniccaninecynosure
In a sentence
Thirty years in local government had left him with a working cynicism about grand plans.