philistines

plural of philistine
as in materialists
a person who is chiefly interested in material comfort and is hostile or indifferent to art and culture the town's philistines who think that spending on the arts is a waste of taxpayers' money

Synonyms & Similar Words

Relevance

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for philistines
Noun
  • One morning during my stay, there were even clowns buzzing about—a thrill to receive a balloon poodle alongside my morning flat white.
    Condé Nast, Condé Nast Traveler, 29 July 2026
  • Perhaps most astonishingly, the movie manages to make creepy clowns — that shopworn trope — genuinely frightening again.
    Declan Gallagher, Entertainment Weekly, 7 July 2026
Noun
  • What’s interesting to me, though, is every generation since the original countercultural capitalists—the baby boomers—has expressed some version of this antipathy.
    Nick Lichtenberg, Fortune, 10 Aug. 2026
  • If enough people are angry at the greedy capitalists and find a rationale to blame them for their woes, the idea of socialism becomes more attractive.
    Mike Patton, Forbes.com, 7 Aug. 2026
Noun
  • Evidence of this mechanism stretches as far back as 1989, when French metabolic researcher Jean Girard and his colleagues published a paper describing how metformin increased the amount of glucose rats absorbed in their intestines.
    Viviane Callier, Scientific American, 13 Aug. 2026
  • But criticism of the outdoor dining arrangements built up, with detractors saying the spots were unsightly, dirty, and harboring rats.
    Josephine Stratman, New York Daily News, 13 Aug. 2026
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Browse Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Philistines.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/philistines. Accessed 16 Aug. 2026.

More from Merriam-Webster on philistines

Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

More from Merriam-Webster