prejudice

¹prej·u·dice

noun \ˈpre-jə-dəs\

Definition of PREJUDICE

1

: injury or damage resulting from some judgment or action of another in disregard of one's rights; especially : detriment to one's legal rights or claims

2

a (1) : preconceived judgment or opinion (2) : an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge b : an instance of such judgment or opinion c : an irrational attitude of hostility directed against an individual, a group, a race, or their supposed characteristics

Examples of PREJUDICE

1. The organization fights against racial prejudice.
2. religious, racial, and sexual prejudices
3. We tend to make these kinds of decisions according to our own prejudices.
4. He has a prejudice against fast-food restaurants.
5. But today most black Americans not hampered by poverty or prejudice take for granted their right to study Italian, listen to Britney Spears or opera, play in the NHL, eat Thai food, live anywhere, work anywhere, play anywhere, read and think and say anything. —Stephan Talty, Mulatto America, 2003
6. It is easy to suppose at this late date that there is barely any overt racism left in the United States, … Kennedy's catalog of mundane cases of explicit anti-black prejudice provides ample illustration of what lurks beneath the surface politeness of many whites. —John McWhorter, New Republic, 14 Jan. 2002
7. The boundaries between hate and prejudice and between prejudice and opinion and between opinion and truth are so complicated and blurred that any attempt to construct legal and political fire walls is a doomed and illiberal venture. —Andrew Sullivan, New York Times Magazine, 26 Sept. 1999
8. When my mother, who, unlike my father, was Jewish, encountered unpleasant social prejudice during my high-school years, I acquired a second marginal identity. —Carl E. Schorske, Thinking with History, 1998

Origin of PREJUDICE

Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin praejudicium previous judgment, damage, from prae- + judicium judgment — more at judicial

First Known Use: 13th century

Related to PREJUDICE

Synonyms: favor, nonobjectivity, one-sidedness, partiality, parti pris, partisanship, ply, bias, tendentiousness

Antonyms: impartiality, neutrality, objectivity, open-mindedness, unbiasedness

Related Words: chauvinism, cronyism, favoritism, nepotism; self-opinionatedness, self-partiality; bent, inclination, leaning, penchant, predilection, predisposition, proclivity, propensity, tendency; preconception, prejudgment, prepossession

Near Antonyms: calm, detachment, dispassion, indifference; aversion, dislike, distaste, hate, scunner

see all synonyms and antonyms

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See Synonym Discussion at predilection

Other Sociology Terms

bourgeois, ethos, eugenics, exurb, incommunicado, intelligentsia, megalopolis, metrosexual, mores, subculture