Definition:
: the extreme nationalistic doctrines of the German National Socialist party under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, from about 1930
About the Word:
Pejoration is a word used by linguists for the process whereby the meaning or connotations of a word will take a turn for the worse. Few have experienced a greater case of this than have two words which began in the 1920s to describe political movements: Hitlerism (1925) and fascism (1921). The former first saw use in English in 1925, and was simply then the word used to describe the nationalistic tenets of the German National Socialist party. Fascism initially referred simply to the doctrines of the fascisti, the Italian political party which gave rise to Benito Mussolini.
Both words have come to denote brutal and authoritarian endeavors, often without political affiliation.
Example:
"It probably marks the high water mark of Hitlerism in Germany, for it is inconceivable that a mountebank of the type of Adolf Hitler can long survive in an orderly community." — The Rockford Republic, 22 September 1930
