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 Synonym Discussion at predilection

Other Sociology Terms

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

²prej·u·dice

transitive verb \ˈpre-jə-dəs\

prej·u·dicedprej·u·dic·ing

Definition of PREJUDICE

1

: to injure or damage by some judgment or action (as in a case of law)

2

: to cause to have prejudice(see ¹prejudice)

Examples of PREJUDICE

1. <all the bad stories I had heard about the incoming CEO prejudiced me against him even before the first meeting>
2. Paul Revere … engraved the drawing and printed hundreds of vividly colored copies, which traveled throughout the colonies. Well might one judge at Captain Preston's trial complain that “there has been a great deal done to prejudice the People against the Prisoner.” —Hiller B. Zobel American Heritage, July/August 1995
3. My friends would have had me delay my departure, but fearful of prejudicing my employers against me by such want of punctuality at the commencement of my undertaking, I persisted in keeping the appointment. —Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey, 1847

Origin of PREJUDICE

(see ¹prejudice)

First Known Use: 15th century

Related to PREJUDICE

Synonyms

bias, poison, turn

Related Words

dispose, incline, predispose; influence, prepossess; convince, persuade, suggest