mentality

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a habitual way of thinking or a characteristic set of attitudes and beliefs

   The coach tried to replace the team's defensive mentality with a more confident one.

2. 2
   noun

   the characteristic mental outlook of a particular person, group, or culture

   The novel captures the mentality of a society undergoing rapid change.

3. 3
   noun

   mental capacity or intellectual ability; now often dated

   Older reports used mentality as a crude label for intellectual ability.

From French mentalite, or formed in English from mental + -ity. Mental comes through Late Latin mentalis from Latin mens, "mind." The word first denoted mental capacity and later developed its now-common sense of a characteristic way of thinking.

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