cult of personality
5
7.6
- noun
- /kʌlt əv pɜrˈsənəlɪti/
- Literature
:
culto a la personalidad
- I am truly amazed at his cult of personality.
Examples
-
It was a grassroots movement, fueled by the power of the Internet and the cult of personality.
-
A cult of personality develops where the people are more loyal to him than to God.
Blog text (16) -
First, it is a cult of personality.
Academic text (2007) -
Is there a cult of personality involved in the popularity?
Academic text (1996) -
People get caught up in the cult of personality, and that closes the mind.
Blog text (20) -
Obama's cult of personality will not give the next Democrat the same benefit of the doubt.
Blog text (2) -
Did the repubs make a "cult of personality" out of Ronald Reagan?
Blog text (4) -
The American cult of personality and its odd confusion of marital fidelity and professional morality have always baffled me.
Blog text (9) -
Some of this—maybe much of it—has to be put down to blog ego trips and cults of personality.
Blog text (28) -
Kim, like his father, has created a cult of personality that the people are required to worship.
Synonyms
101
5.8
A group of people who are very enthusiastic about a film or television show
4
5.1
A very strong admiration for a famous person that ignores their faults
A group of people who strongly support a person, idea, or product without question
Antonyms
How Devoted
- Literature
5
7.6
9
9.0
- Formal
18
8.4
106
1.8
∞
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
cult + of + personality
The sense 'intense organized admiration of a public figure' is directly built from 'cult' (a devoted, often extreme following) + 'personality' (a public figure/celebrity) linked by 'of', so a learner who knows those words can infer the MWE meaning. This composition is cross-linguistically common (e.g. French culte de la personnalité, Spanish culto a la personalidad), supporting predictability for B1 learners.
Etymology
The phrase cult of personality uses the image of a small cult 'worshipping' one person's personality. So it means making a leader look like a 'hero' so people admire them without question.