Babbittry

or Bab·bit·ry

[ bab-i-tree ]

noun

, (often lowercase)

1. the attitude and behavior of a Babbitt.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Babbittry¹

First recorded in 1925–30; Babbitt + -ry

Example Sentences

The neologism “Babbittry,” meaning banal materialism, came from the title of a 1922 novel by Minnesotan Sinclair Lewis: “His name was George F. Babbitt. He was forty-six years old now, in April, 1920, and he made nothing in particular, neither butter nor shoes nor poetry, but he was nimble in the calling of selling houses for more than people could afford to pay.”

From Washington Post

Lauck assigns most of the blame for this attitude to scholarly nabobs like Carl Van Doren, who led a “revolt from the village” sentiment that characterized the region as suffused with retrograde Babbittry.

From Washington Post

A favorite President of Ronald Reagan’s, Calvin Coolidge, is perhaps best remembered for his remark that “the chief business of the American people is business,” which liberals have long scorned as presidential Babbittry while conservatives have celebrated Coolidge’s small-government common sense and fiscal discipline.

From Time

These stories are all satirical, making fun of Babbittry, small-town hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness, but the humor is mostly as fond as it is pointed, and the characters are never caricatures.

From The New Yorker

Perhaps it's the general ambience that surrounds Carnegie today, evoking images of Babbittry, good-natured guffaws and glad-handing, the perpetual American boosterism, that provokes these reactions.

From Inc