ideology

Etymology

Borrowed from French idéologie, from idéo- + -logie (equivalent to English ideo- + -logy). Cognate with, but not derived from, idea. Coined 1796 by Antoine Destutt de Tracy. Modern sense of “doctrine” attributed to use of related idéologue (“ideologue”) by Napoleon Bonaparte as a term of abuse towards political opponents in early 1800s.

noun

1. Doctrine, philosophy, body of beliefs or principles belonging to an individual or group.
   A dictatorship bans things, that do not conform to its ideology, to secure its reign.
   What is unbearable, in fact, is the feeling, 13 years after 9/11, that America has been chasing its tail; that, in some whack-a-mole horror show, the quashing of a jihadi enclave here only spurs the sprouting of another there; that the ideology of Al Qaeda is still reverberating through a blocked Arab world whose Sunni-Shia balance (insofar as that went) was upended by the American invasion of Iraq. 17 November 2014, Roger Cohen, “The horror! The horror! The trauma of ISIS [print version: International New York Times, 18 November 2014, p. 9]”, in The New York Times
   Ideology constantly gets in the way. For the Government, unions are militant "Trots" out to cause political trouble. For the unions, the private sector is a grasping, evil leech. Neither is true. August 24 2022, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Rail strikes deadlock”, in RAIL, number 964, page 3
2. (uncountable) The study of the origin and nature of ideas.