What does mammonist mean?
A mammonist is someone who gives excessive or exclusive devotion to money, possessions, and material gain. The word carries a strongly critical, often moral or religious implication: it suggests that wealth has been elevated into a kind of deity and that financial success has become a measure of personal worth. Calling someone a mammonist is more specific and more accusatory than calling them a materialist, since it implies not merely an attachment to material life but an unhealthy or quasi-religious fixation on it. The term is uncommon in everyday speech and is most likely to appear in literary, political, sermonic, or philosophical contexts. Although it can describe a person broadly understood as devoted to wealth, it can also identify someone who promotes or embodies such devotion. Its biblical heritage gives it a memorable moral force, making it especially effective when discussing greed, conspicuous consumption, or the power of money over ethical judgment.
nounA person who places excessive or exclusive value on wealth and material possessions, especially to the point of treating their pursuit as a form of worship.
- A person whose devotion to wealth and material gain is treated as a form of worship or moral obsession.
"The novel portrays the ruthless businessman as a mammonist who believes that power and money justify every moral compromise."
"Critics dismissed him as a mammonist whose only measure of success was the size of his bank account."
"The sermon warned that a life devoted entirely to accumulation makes its adherents mammonists."
The regular plural of mammonist.
"The novel condemns the mammonists who control the town but neglect its people."
A mammonist does not merely want money; they treat money as a god.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of mammonist
The word derives from Mammon, the personification of wealth in the New Testament, whose name appears in a passage warning against serving wealth. English borrowed the name through Latin, and the form mammonist was created with the suffix -ist, denoting an adherent or devotee. It belongs to the same family as mammonism, the doctrine or practice of treating wealth as an ultimate good.
Related word forms
How mammonist is actually used
This is a rare, generally literary or polemical term. It is more critical and stronger than the neutral word materialist and does not merely mean that someone is wealthy or commercially successful.
Easily confused with mammonist
A materialist broadly prioritizes physical needs and material existence, whereas a mammonist more specifically gives wealth itself an overriding or quasi-religious importance.