Entry: shibboleths (n.)
In context: "...an exchange of slavish dependence on the bottle/pipe for slavish dependence on meetings and banal shibboleths and robotic piety..."
Definition: A catchword or formula adopted by a party or sect, by which their adherents or followers may be discerned, or those not their followers may be excluded.
Other: loosely. A custom, habit, mode of dress, or the like, which distinguishes a particular class or set of persons.
Here is some classic SNOOT for you:
1849 T. B. Macaulay Hist. Eng. I. iii. 400 To that sanctimonious jargon, which was his shibboleth, was opposed another jargon not less absurd.
SNOOT score: 2
Page: 706
Source: Oxford English Dictionary
Definitive Jest is a vocabulary-building and SNOOT-approved word-of-the-day blog centered around David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest.
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