dogma
dog-muh
noun
A belief or system of beliefs, usually deemed beyond questioning
There is nothing particularly etymologically or semantically unusual about the word ‘dogma’, I just wanted to shoehorn a picture of a dog into my blog this week.
‘Dogma’ has nothing to do with our furry friends, alas. ‘Dogma’ comes from Greek ‘dogma’, meaning ‘tenet’ or ‘opinion’, and ultimately from the verb ‘dokein’ meaning ‘to expect’ or ‘to think’. ‘Dog’, on the other hand, forming as it does a part of what might be considered a ‘core’ of any language’s vocabulary, comes from Old English ‘docga’ meaning, perhaps unsurprisingly, ‘dog’.
‘Dogma’ was originally a religious term, referring to tenets or beliefs that were divinely revealed, and therefore beyond question. Examples of Christian dogmata (despite ultimately being a Greek word the plural follows Latin rules) include the divinity of Jesus Christ and his resurrection from the dead.
These days ‘dogma’ and its derived terms ‘dogmatic’ and ‘dogmatism’ have acquired a distinctly pejorative tone, and any hardline belief that is not open to debate or question can reasonably be called a ‘dogma’.