[f. prec. + -ISM.]

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  1.  The profession of knowing nothing, the practice of wilful ignorance; the doctrine of agnostics, agnosticism.

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1866.  Reader, 15 Dec., 1007. He must have long felt that the ignorance which is sedulously kept up of practical physiology adequately reflects the ‘knownothingism’ of middle-class Englishmen.

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1871.  R. H. Hutton, Ess., I. 27. A sort of know-nothingism, or Agnosticism, or belief in an unknown and unknowable God.

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1881.  Standard, 7 Feb., 6/4 The age is … face to face … with Agnosticism, or Know-nothingism.

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  2.  The political doctrine of the American Know-nothings: see KNOW-NOTHING A. 2.

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1855.  N. Y. Times, 14 Sept., 4/3 (Bartlett Amer.). The Know-Nothings have had their day…. The earth hath bubbles, and Know-Nothingism was one of them.

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1885.  Lalor & Mason, trans. Von Holst’s Const. Hist. U. S., V. 112–3. Know-Nothingism had very ardent partisans in the southern states.

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