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a barbarous or uncivilized state or condition.
a barbarous act; something belonging to or befitting a barbarous condition.
the use in a language of forms or constructions felt by some to be undesirably alien to the established standards of the language.
such a form or construction:
Some people consider “complected” as a barbarism.
Contemporary Examples

“barbarism,” said retired NYPD Officer Jim Smith on Thursday.
The Muslim Cop Killed by Terrorists Michael Daly January 8, 2015

Is it also genius and a classic work about the struggle between civilization and barbarism, between good and evil?
Sloane Crosley’s Depressing Beach Reads Sloane Crosley June 30, 2011

The difference now is that ISIS no longer depends on intermediaries to broadcast its barbarism.
ISIS is Using Social Media to Reach YOU, Its New Audience Jacob Siegel August 30, 2014

And now add Afghanistan to this list of places where so-called religion is a great excuse for barbarism.
Killed for Adultery Eliza Griswold August 16, 2010

This war, said Poroshenko, is a “choice between civilization and barbarism.”
Ukraine’s President Wowed Congress, But His Party Has a Dark Side Anna Nemtsova September 18, 2014

Historical Examples

War is the last and worst stain of barbarism on the escutcheon of civilisation.
The War and the Churches Joseph McCabe

A Hottentot would not have been guilty of this sort of barbarism.
American Notes Rudyard Kipling

Admit that they want any barbarism eliminated from their veins.
Villa Elsa Stuart Henry

They rescued the people from barbarism, and uplifted the standard of the cross.
English Villages P. H. Ditchfield

But the Japanese were the only ones who refused to join the westward stampede plunging the world daily deeper into barbarism.
Greener Than You Think Ward Moore

noun
a brutal, coarse, or ignorant act
the condition of being backward, coarse, or ignorant
a substandard or erroneously constructed or derived word or expression; solecism
any act or object that offends against accepted taste
n.

mid-15c., “uncivilized or rude nature,” from French barbarisme (13c.), from Latin barbarismus, from Greek barbarismos “foreign speech,” from barbarizein “to do as a foreigner does” (see barbarian). Only of speech in Greek, Latin, and French; sense extended in English to “uncivilized condition.”