Definition 1: A boorish person without interest in the arts and who is antagonistic to cultural values; someone whose interests are in material, common things.

Usage 1: Today's word divides the world into two camps, just as the ancient Israelites saw themselves as a people quite apart from the Philistines (see the Etymology). There are the artists or the cultural elite and their enemies: the philistines or the bourgeois. Philistinism is another noun form meaning "vulgarity."

Suggested usage: Nobody wants to be a philistine, but we all know members of that tribe when we meet them, "Freeman is such a philistine, he eats his peas with a knife!" But philistines are a force to be reckoned with: "The local philistines have convinced the school board to cut support for art, literature, and music from next year's budget."

Etymology: The Philistines were originally a bellicose people of uncertain origin who occupied the southern coast of Palestine and constantly harassed the Israelites. Their name probably came across its current meaning in 1689 in Jena when a minister, in a memorial service for a student killed by angry townspeople, referred to the townsfolk as Philistines (German "Philister"). In 1869 British author Matthew Arnold adopted the German slang word in 'Culture and Anarchy,' "The people who believe most that our greatness and welfare are proved by our being very rich, are just the very people whom we call Philistines." It was Arnold's reference that set the term for English. (YDC thanks anti-philistine Cliff Shin for asking us about the current political correctness of today's very old epithet.)