materialism

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   Constant concern over material possessions and wealth; a great or excessive regard for worldly concerns.

   We accept that a third of the population live on the poverty line. We accept that only a handful of the most exceptional of the children of the poor will make it through to a third-level education. We accept massive examples of greed and dishonesty in public life. We except the values of materialism. What do we expect then—to be left un-harassed, we who have all the privileges?

2. 2
   noun

   The philosophical belief that nothing exists beyond what is physical.

   The result of the labours of philosophy appeared to be a total scepticism on the most important subjects of hu man duty and expectation. The irregular fears of a future state had been supplanted by the materialism of Epicurus; and this system—if system it may be called, which left them without a God, a providence, a morality, or a retribution—was the fashionable philosophy of the more cultivated classes.

3. 3
   noun

   (philosophy) the philosophical theory that matter is the only reality

4. 4
   noun

   a desire for wealth and material possessions with little interest in ethical or spiritual matters

5. 5
   noun

   Synonym of matter, material substances in the aggregate.

Etymology

Borrowed from French matérialisme. By surface analysis, material + -ism.