subs. (literary).—The region of the unenlightened or commonplace: specifically (MATHEW ARNOLD) the English middle-class—‘ignorant, narrow-minded, and deficient in great ideas.’ Whence (generally) PHILISTINE = an unlettered BARBARIAN (q.v.); a person, male or female, who has never read Mathew Arnold. [Orig. German students’ = anybody not belonging to a university.]
1857. C. KINGSLEY, Two Years Ago, x. Yet have PHILISTIA and Fogeydom neither right nor reason to consider him a despicable or merely ludicrous person.
1886. J. MCCARTHY, and CAMPBELL PRAED, “The Right Honourable,” I. iii. Aristocratic PHILISTIA and Upper Bohemia.
1900. KIPLING, Stalky & Co., 209. Vile bad form to turn your back on the audience! He’s a PHILISTINE—a Bopper—a Jebusite—an’ a Hivite?
1901. Daily Telegraph, 25 April, 8, 7. We … have always had a reputation on the Continent for an almost brutal vitality and vigour, combined with a PHILISTINE deficiency in all matters concerning the delicate and the beautiful.
