"culture war" meaning in English

See culture war in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: culture wars [plural]
Etymology: Calque of German Kulturkampf. Etymology templates: {{calque|en|de|Kulturkampf}} Calque of German Kulturkampf Head templates: {{en-noun}} culture war (plural culture wars)
  1. (rare) A political struggle for control over cultural institutions. Tags: rare
    Sense id: en-culture_war-en-noun-dl~jb4-c
  2. (often in the plural) Conflict between different ideological groups, especially political conflict for cultural dominance between liberals and conservatives in the United States. Tags: in-plural, often Translations (political conflict for cultural dominance): 文化战争 (Chinese Mandarin), kulttuurisota (Finnish), kulttuurisodankäynti (Finnish), guerre culturelle [feminine] (French), კულტურული ომი (ḳulṭuruli omi) (Georgian), Kulturkampf [masculine] (German), kultúrharc (Hungarian), мәдени соғыс (mädeni soğys) (Kazakh), wojna kultur [feminine] (Polish), guerra cultural [feminine] (Spanish), batalla cultural [feminine] (Spanish)
    Sense id: en-culture_war-en-noun-3KXQPus8 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Entries with translation boxes, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Terms with Finnish translations, Terms with French translations, Terms with Georgian translations, Terms with German translations, Terms with Hungarian translations, Terms with Kazakh translations, Terms with Mandarin translations, Terms with Polish translations, Terms with Spanish translations Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 22 78 Disambiguation of Entries with translation boxes: 22 78 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 14 86 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 22 78 Disambiguation of Terms with Finnish translations: 13 87 Disambiguation of Terms with French translations: 15 85 Disambiguation of Terms with Georgian translations: 12 88 Disambiguation of Terms with German translations: 15 85 Disambiguation of Terms with Hungarian translations: 13 87 Disambiguation of Terms with Kazakh translations: 11 89 Disambiguation of Terms with Mandarin translations: 12 88 Disambiguation of Terms with Polish translations: 14 86 Disambiguation of Terms with Spanish translations: 13 87 Disambiguation of 'political conflict for cultural dominance': 14 86
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Related terms: culture warrior

Inflected forms

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  "etymology_text": "Calque of German Kulturkampf.",
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        "A political struggle for control over cultural institutions."
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        "(rare) A political struggle for control over cultural institutions."
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1999, Nick Gillespie, “All Culture, All the Time”, in Reason:",
          "text": "Little wonder, then, that stories about the “culture wars” have been burning up the pages of newspapers, magazines, and intellectual journals for the past few years: There’s so much more to fight about these days.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015, Chris Lehmann, “The Candidates”, in London Review of Books, volume 37, number 12:",
          "text": "Bush’s other accomplishments in office include […] prolonging the life of the severely brain-damaged Terri Schiavo in a cynical bid to burnish his culture wars résumé.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016 March 11, Jennifer Coates, “I Am A Transwoman. I Am In The Closet. I Am Not Coming Out.”, in Medium:",
          "text": "I am thirteen years old. The internet has arrived and I have learned with some relief that there is, at least for now, a condition called Gender Identity Disorder. I do not know that in the next decade there will be waged culture wars over what is the best thing to call me — nor that they will happen on this very internet.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2019 August 15, Charlie Warzel, “How an Online Mob Created a Playbook for a Culture War”, in New York Times:",
          "text": "This false premise of video game industry collusion spiraled into an online culture war, ensnaring female gaming critics like Anita Sarkeesian and other designers like Brianna Wu who would suffer months of relentless abuse on and offline.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 May 16, Peter Walker, quoting Michael Gove, “Michael Gove says Tories will not win election with culture wars”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:",
          "text": "Conservatives need to recognise that elections are won on economics and public services rather than culture wars, Michael Gove has said in what will be seen as a rebuke to Suella Braverman.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 October 18, Christian Wolmar, “The back of a fag packet used for unworkable rail plans”, in RAIL, number 994, page 44:",
          "text": "Ignoring the fact that there was a big swing anyway, and that the Tory majority went down to fewer than 500 votes, the Conservatives now seem to be basing their entire election strategy for the forthcoming General Election on breaking the former consensus on net zero and turning the environment debate into one big culture war.",
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        "(often in the plural) Conflict between different ideological groups, especially political conflict for cultural dominance between liberals and conservatives in the United States."
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          "_dis1": "14 86",
          "code": "cmn",
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          "sense": "political conflict for cultural dominance",
          "word": "文化战争"
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          "word": "kulttuurisota"
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          "_dis1": "14 86",
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          "word": "kulttuurisodankäynti"
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          "sense": "political conflict for cultural dominance",
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          "_dis1": "14 86",
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          "roman": "ḳulṭuruli omi",
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          "_dis1": "14 86",
          "code": "de",
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          "sense": "political conflict for cultural dominance",
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          "_dis1": "14 86",
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "political conflict for cultural dominance",
          "word": "kultúrharc"
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          "_dis1": "14 86",
          "code": "kk",
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          "roman": "mädeni soğys",
          "sense": "political conflict for cultural dominance",
          "word": "мәдени соғыс"
        },
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          "code": "pl",
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          "sense": "political conflict for cultural dominance",
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        }
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        "(rare) A political struggle for control over cultural institutions."
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          "ref": "2016 March 11, Jennifer Coates, “I Am A Transwoman. I Am In The Closet. I Am Not Coming Out.”, in Medium:",
          "text": "I am thirteen years old. The internet has arrived and I have learned with some relief that there is, at least for now, a condition called Gender Identity Disorder. I do not know that in the next decade there will be waged culture wars over what is the best thing to call me — nor that they will happen on this very internet.",
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          "type": "quote"
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          "ref": "2023 May 16, Peter Walker, quoting Michael Gove, “Michael Gove says Tories will not win election with culture wars”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:",
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          "ref": "2023 October 18, Christian Wolmar, “The back of a fag packet used for unworkable rail plans”, in RAIL, number 994, page 44:",
          "text": "Ignoring the fact that there was a big swing anyway, and that the Tory majority went down to fewer than 500 votes, the Conservatives now seem to be basing their entire election strategy for the forthcoming General Election on breaking the former consensus on net zero and turning the environment debate into one big culture war.",
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        "(often in the plural) Conflict between different ideological groups, especially political conflict for cultural dominance between liberals and conservatives in the United States."
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  "translations": [
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      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "sense": "political conflict for cultural dominance",
      "word": "文化战争"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "political conflict for cultural dominance",
      "word": "kulttuurisota"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "political conflict for cultural dominance",
      "word": "kulttuurisodankäynti"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "political conflict for cultural dominance",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "guerre culturelle"
    },
    {
      "code": "ka",
      "lang": "Georgian",
      "roman": "ḳulṭuruli omi",
      "sense": "political conflict for cultural dominance",
      "word": "კულტურული ომი"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "political conflict for cultural dominance",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "Kulturkampf"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "political conflict for cultural dominance",
      "word": "kultúrharc"
    },
    {
      "code": "kk",
      "lang": "Kazakh",
      "roman": "mädeni soğys",
      "sense": "political conflict for cultural dominance",
      "word": "мәдени соғыс"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "political conflict for cultural dominance",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "wojna kultur"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "political conflict for cultural dominance",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "guerra cultural"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "political conflict for cultural dominance",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "batalla cultural"
    }
  ],
  "word": "culture war"
}

Download raw JSONL data for culture war meaning in English (5.7kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-31 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-20 using wiktextract (bcd5c38 and 9dbd323). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.