Also spelled anti-Semitic
Meanings
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1
adj
hostile, prejudiced, or discriminatory toward Jewish people
The museum documents how antisemitic propaganda prepared the ground for persecution.
Thesaurus
Simplified etymology
Anti-Semitic dates from the mid-19th century and is based on Semitic. Semitic derives from Sem, the Latin form of the biblical name Shem, and was introduced as a linguistic term for a family including Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Ethiopic, and ancient Assyrian. Semitic also came to be used, often derogatorily, for Jewish people or things Jewish.
Etymology
Formed from antisemitism + -ic. German Antisemitismus was popularized in the late nineteenth century as a political label for hostility toward Jews; despite its form, antisemitic conventionally refers specifically to anti-Jewish prejudice, not hostility toward all speakers of Semitic languages.