Fwd: "ideological" - Word of the Day from the OED

[Dave Monroe]

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Date: Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 7:30 PM
Subject: "ideological" - Word of the Day from the OED
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OED Online Word of the Day
________________________________

ideological, a.

SECOND EDITION 1989

Also erron. idealogical. [f. as prec. + -AL1.]

    1. Belonging or relating to ideology (sense 1), or to the study of ideas.

1797 Monthly Mag. III. 286 Tracy..exhibits..a summary table of such
ideological truths, as he conceives to be evident. 1843 MILL Logic IV.
i. §4 Abstinence..from ideological discussions. 1886 Proc. Philol.
Soc. 4 June p. xliii, He had compiled lists of ideological indices for
over two hundred languages.

    2. a. Relating to, or occupied with, an idea or ideas, esp. of a
visionary kind; dealing with ideas as opposed to facts; ideal,
speculative, idealistic. (Cf. IDEOLOGY 2.)

1837 Blackw. Mag. XLII. 407 Hence arises what Napoleon has called the
ideological race of men. 1862 HEURTLEY in Repl. ‘Ess. & Rev.’ 167 It
is an insult to his understanding to ask him to allow a so-called
ideological application to supplant the natural and obvious meaning.
1869 Pall Mall G. 14 Oct. 10 If these tendencies are to be classified
at all, they can only be classed in two divisionsthe ideological (I
intentionally avoid the word idealistic) and the materialistic.

    b. Of or relating to an ideology (sense 4).

1914 Atlantic Monthly June 775/1 If Mr. Mencken's earnest seekers
after truth wish to evolve ideological schemes of municipal
taxation..then, indeed, the newspaper discussions of these questions
would be bewildering to these visionary workers in the realms of pure
reason. 1925 M. EASTMAN Since Lenin Died iv. 32 Without realising
this, you cannot penetrate beneath the ideological surface of the
dispute which followed. 1937 Times 2 Nov. 17/2 Japan will be an
absentee at Brussels... So will Germany... The inconvenience, to say
no more, of ideological attitudes has been very swiftly illustrated.
1939 Times 2 Nov. 8/2 The attacks on Great Britain and France for
waging ideological warfare (is not Communist warfare ideological?) and
at the same time being actuated by imperialistic motives are an
obvious contradiction in terms. 1940 E. POUND Cantos lv. 56 But his
brat was run by his missus And they had an ideological war. 1952 Ann.
Reg. 1951 4 The rulers of Russia inherited imperialism and added to it
an ideological imperialism. 1963 Daily Tel. 14 Oct. 12/2 Though it has
been left this year to Albania to sponsor Communist China's
membership, it will still be supported by her newly declared
ideological foe, the Soviet Union, and by the victim of her
aggression, India. 1969 Guardian 11 Sept. 7/2 Nor was he ever
‘ideological’, in the sense required by New Left dogmatists.

    Hence ideologically adv., in an ideological manner; in a non-literal sense.

1861 BP. S. WILBERFORCE Ess. (1874) I. 150 They ideologically suggest
that, when it is asserted that our Lord miraculously fed the
multitudes..no more is meant than that..he fed the souls of thousands
with edifying moral discourses. 1862 HEURTLEY in Repl. ‘Ess. & Rev.’
175 To be understood, not as literally and historically true, but only
ideologically, or in a ‘spiritualized sense’. 1957 P. WORSLEY Trumpet
shall Sound iii. 67 It..represents a conscious step towards the
establishment of forms of organization, which..were independent both
organizationally and ideologically. 1970 Daily Tel. 10 Jan. 12 As
China's strength and numbers grow she becomes less prepared..to play
second fiddle to Russia ideologically. 1971 Ibid. 3 Apr. 10/5 The
Soviet system remains ideologically and politically committed to the
destruction of our way of life.

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