Manifesto Has Latin Roots

Noun

Manifesto is related to manifest, which occurs in English as a noun, verb, and adjective. Of these, the adjective, which means "readily perceived by the senses" or "easily recognized," is oldest, dating to the 14th century. Both manifest and manifesto derive ultimately from the Latin noun manus ("hand") and -festus, a combining form that is related to the Latin adjective infestus, meaning "hostile." Something that is manifest is easy to perceive or recognize, and a manifesto is a statement in which someone makes his or her intentions or views easy for people to ascertain. Perhaps the most famous statement of this sort is the Communist Manifesto, written in 1848 by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to outline the platform of the Communist League.

Examples of manifesto in a Sentence

Noun The group's manifesto focused on helping the poor and stopping violence.

Recent Examples on the Web: Noun Plus: Zuckerberg’s community manifesto, how to hold platforms accountable, and an accidental admission in Congress. — Steven Levy, Wired, "Facebook Can’t Fix What It Won’t Admit To," 15 Jan. 2021 The massacre cannot be linked directly to Trump, but Roof’s manifesto echoed some of the themes in Trump’s campaign announcement. — NBC News, "The Trump-fueled riot shocked America. To some, it was a long time coming.," 16 Jan. 2021 A few months before the Community Summit in Chicago, Mark Zuckerberg released a manifesto about Facebook as a builder of communities. — Steven Levy, Wired, "Facebook Can’t Fix What It Won’t Admit To," 15 Jan. 2021 The agreement delivers on the manifesto commitments of control of money, borders laws and fish, the newspaper reported, citing a WhatsApp message from Johnson to Tory members of parliament. — Lisa Pham, Bloomberg.com, "Gove Says Britain, EU to Enjoy ‘Special Relationship’ With Deal," 26 Dec. 2020 In the end, Mason is unsure what will come of the manifesto and the radical orthodoxy rhetoric. — The Salt Lake Tribune, "There’s a new ‘manifesto’ circulating among Latter-day Saints, and it’s ‘radical’," 5 Dec. 2020 In a bid to win over farmers, Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said in its 2014 general election manifesto that all crop prices should be fixed at a minimum of 50% higher than the production costs. — Julia Hollingsworth, Swati Gupta And Esha Mitra, CNN, "Tens of thousands of farmers swarm India's capital to protest deregulation rules," 1 Dec. 2020 Monywa Aung Shin, a spokesman for the NLD, said the party will work toward peace and building a democratic federal union, as outlined in its election manifesto. — Washington Post, "Suu Kyi’s godlike status drove her Myanmar election win. It threatens to rip the country apart.," 18 Nov. 2020 Tarrant, an Australian who had posted a white supremacist manifesto online and live-streamed part of the slaughter on Facebook, was sentenced in August to life in prison without parole. — Washington Post, "Jacinda Ardern apologizes for lapses in lead-up to New Zealand mosque attacks," 8 Dec. 2020

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'manifesto.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.