[f. CÆSAR + -ISM.]

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  1.  The system of absolute government founded by Cæsar; imperialism.

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1857.  O. Brownson, Convert, Wks. V. 192. Monarchical absolutism, or what I choose to call modern Cæsarism.

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1858.  Westm. Rev., Oct., 313. Clumsy eulogies of Cæsarism as incarnate in the dynasty of Bonaparte.

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1869.  Pall Mall Gaz., 1 Sept., 1/1. In Napoleon’s Cæsarism there has been no flaw.

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1870.  Jevons, Elem. Logic, vi. 47. Even the abstract word Cæsarism has been formed to express a kind of imperial system as established by Cæsar.

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1876.  Bancroft, Hist. U.S., VI. xxxi. 97. Charlemagne … renewing Roman Cæsarism.

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  b.  = ERASTIANISM.

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1874.  J. B. Heard, in C. M. Davies, Unorth. Lond. (1876), 460. Cæsarism, or the supremacy of the civil power in spiritual things, is a national evil.

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  So Cæsarist, an imperialist; Cæsarize, v. intr. to play the Cæsar; trans. to make like Cæsar, or like Cæsar’s.

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1603.  J. Davies (Heref.), Microcosmos, 45 (D.).

        This pow’r hath highest vertue of Desire,
And Cæsarizeth ore each Appetite.

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1652.  Benlowes, Theoph., XI. lxxxiii. 203.

        Gallants, Should Trophies Cæsarize your Power,
  Should Beauty Helenize your Flower.

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1875.  H. Kingsley, No. Seventeen, xl. 309. She is not a Cæsarist, because she says that the lady of Chiselhurst had never any taste in ribands.

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1883.  Swinburne, Victor Hugo, in Fortn. Rev., 1 Oct., 516. German and Anglo-German Cæsarists.

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