anti-Western

adjective

an·​ti-West·​ern ˌan-tē-ˈwe-stərn 

ˌan-tī-

variants or less commonly anti-West

ˌan-tē-ˈwest 

ˌan-tī-

: opposed to or hostile toward Western countries

anti-Western terrorists

anti-Western sentiment

… triggered an outpouring of anti-Western and anti-American feeling in Africa and at the United Nations.

—Jennifer Seymour Whitaker

… at moments during the film, I felt I was back there again, amid the anti-West slogans; the massive anti-American demonstrations in front of the U.S. embassy.

—Bernard Kalb

Examples of anti-Western in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

But the monumental scale of destruction in Gaza has breathed new life into Tehran’s anti-Western and anti-Israeli invective. —Suzanne Maloney, Foreign Affairs, 8 Apr. 2024

More recently, coups in Burkina Faso in 2022 and Niger last year have come amid growing anti-Western sentiment. —Rachel Chason, Washington Post, 23 Mar. 2024

Now, these juntas have taken steps to wrap themselves in anti-Western rhetoric and have taken preliminary steps to rid themselves of the vestiges of their colonial past. —Daniel Markind, Forbes, 21 Feb. 2024

Recommended Safety West Bank settler extremists widen campaign against Palestinians The pace of anti-Western measures has intensified amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, which the Kremlin has convinced most Russians is a struggle for survival against a West united in its hostility. —Fred Weir, The Christian Science Monitor, 30 Jan. 2024

Meanwhile, anti-Western juntas in Mali and Niger have compelled the United States and France to scale back their security presence. —Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 24 Jan. 2024

All three consistently reinforce one another’s anti-American and anti-Western agendas. —Daniel Twining, National Review, 23 Jan. 2024

Axis leaders welcome confrontation with the West at a time when these anti-Western ideas are gaining newfound attention. —Narges Bajoghli, Foreign Affairs, 17 Jan. 2024

While anti-Western sentiment runs high in Niamey, the capital, many Nigeriens elsewhere in the country feel otherwise, especially in Agadez, whose historic center includes the world’s tallest mud-brick mosque and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. —Eric Schmitt Carmen Abd Ali, New York Times, 6 Jan. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1933, in the meaning defined above