barbar-
(Greek > Latin: foreign, strange, outlandish)
Don't confuse this element with barba- which means "beard".
2. A rude, savage, alien, wild, uncivilized person.
3. An uncultured person, or someone who has no sympathy with literary culture.
4. Applied by nations, generally depreciatively, to foreigners; thus at various times and with various speakers or writers: non-Hellenic, non-Roman (most usual), non-Christian.
5. Uncultivated, uncultured, crude, unsophisticated, uncouth: "The artist accused the public of having barbarian tastes."
6. A foreigner, one whose language and customs differ from the speaker's.
From Greek barbaros, "non-Greek, foreign, barbarous," from an Indo-European imitative base barb, "to stammer, stutter; and unintelligible." The Greeks were quoted as saying that foreigners sounded as if they were saying, "Barbar, Barbar," which was, for the Greeks, unintelligible.
Barbarian, from Latin barbarus. It seems to have signified, at first, only a foreign or a foreigner; but, in time, it implied some degree of wildness or cruelty.
2. Of, like, or befitting barbarians: "a barbaric empire; barbaric practices".
3. Marked by crudeness or lack of restraint in taste, style, or manner; such as, "barbaric decorations".
2. The use of words, forms, or expressions considered incorrect or unacceptable; a specific word, form, or expression so used.
Barbarism versus barbarity
There is a significant difference in meaning between barbarism and barbarity. Both denote some absence of civilization, but the word civilization itself has several different senses, one the opposite of barbarism, the other the opposite of barbarity.
On the one hand civilization may refer to the scientific, artistic, and cultural attainments of advanced societies, and it is this sense that figures in the meaning of barbarism. The English word barbarism originally referred to incorrect use of language, but it is now used more generally to refer to ignorance or crudity in matters of taste, including verbal expression: "The newspaper would never allow such barbarisms."
On the other hand, civilization may refer to the basic social order that allows people to resolve their differences peaceably, and it is this sense; that is, civilization as opposed to savagery that figures in the meaning of barbarity, which refers to savage brutality or cruelty in actions: "The reports of the terrorists' barbarity in the way they treated their hostages has been worse than anyone could have anticipated."
2. A cruel or savage act.
3. Brutal or inhuman conduct; cruelty.
4. An act or instance of cruelty or inhumanity.
5. Crudity of style, taste, expression, etc.
2. To become crude or savage or barbaric in behavior or language.