Word for judgemental attitude?

judgmentalism (no e on judge) or the less common judgementalism

Although the best definitions can only be found at wiktionary (judgmental behavior or attitude) and a Washington Times article (quoted below), I think we will find this word in standard dictionaries soon enough.

Opinion columnists, like the rest of humanity, walk a fine line between judgment (holding people accountable to a standard we did not create) and judgmentalism (thinking ourselves morally superior because we haven’t committed the acts of others).

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'judgmental behavior' was almost bottomed out and the single word 'judgmental' was off the chart. Both were removed. Note that with the extra e, both are on par with judgmental behavior (which is not found with the extra e) but judgementalism still wins.


The best single word for the attitude that finishes your sentence is criticism.

The phrase you're looking for is judgmental attitude.

Full Definition of judgmental 1 : of, relating to, or involving judgment 2 : characterized by a tendency to judge harshly <judgmental prigs>

I'm not aware of a single word that means the same thing as judgmental attitude.

Interestingly, Google Ngrams indicates that the use of "judgmental" is on a sharp rise, whereas "judgmental attitude" has only seen slight increase in the last few decades and is still a fraction of the overall usage of the term "judgmental".


The problem you have here is that the noun judgement carries very good vibes. Having good judgement is seen as a positive attribute.

But its formed adjective judgemental is quite the reverse, with bad connotations.

Unless you are to coin another noun, on the back of an adjective formed from a noun, (heaven forbid) what you need is a near-synonym of judgement which is censorious and down-putting.

The best one I can come up with is pronouncements, but you need to replace towards with on.

So how about His continual pronouncements on my life-choices were off-putting