fə̇ˈlistēə noun plural
Usage: often capitalized
Etymology: New Latin, from Late Latin Philistaea, ancient country in southwestern Palestine that was the land of the Philistines
: cultural Philistines as a class : the Philistine world
the perennial tendency of philistia to suspect what it does not understand — Mary McCarthy
fierce … refusal to compromise with philistia which she shared with writers to whom she was in no other way allied — New Republic