[f. prec. + -ISM.]
1. The practice or manner of things colonial.
1864. Eliz. Murray, E. Norman, I. 48. I daresay she will be a nice motherly person, and untainted by colonialism.
1883. American, VI. 46. The narrow trammels of colonialism.
b. A practice or idiom peculiar to or characteristic of a colony. (Cf. provincialism.)
1887. Mrs. D. Daly, Digging & Squatting, 239. To use a colonialism, the place was going ahead.
2. The colonial system or principle.
1886. Dicey, Eng. Case agst. Home Rule (ed. 2), 273. English Colonialism works well enough.
1889. Sir H. Robinson, in Standard, 20 May, 3/1. There are three competing influences at work in South Africa. They are Colonialism, Republicanism, and Imperialism.