Communism is all but dead, and socialism is passe. Capitalism is doing fine, but as an attack word it has been replaced by market economy. Has the suffix -ism lost its sting?

In politics, ism-itis is receding, but in reference to forms of discrimination, the beatism goes on. On the analogy of racism, a term that began as racialism in 1907 but dropped the second syllable in 1935, we have sexism (1968) and ageism (1969). And now a relatively new entry:

''We face a world,'' says Nancy Etcoff, a psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, ''where lookism is one of the most pervasive but denied prejudices.'' She is author of ''Survival of the Prettiest''; though her title is Darwinian, her message bewails the evolution of the power of beauty.

Oxford's 1999 ''20th Century Words,'' by John Ayto, defines lookism as ''prejudice or discrimination on the grounds of appearance (i.e., uglies are done down and the beautiful people get all the breaks).'' The lexicographer's earliest citation was in The Washington Post Magazine in 1978, which reported that fat people coined a defensive word: ''lookism -- discrimination based on looks.''

When the G.O.P. candidate George W. Bush flashed a half-smile that struck some as a smirk, he was widely derided for this facial expression. ''Bush isn't the only presidential candidate to suffer from this elaborately sanctioned lookism,'' wrote Julia Keller in The Chicago Tribune. ''Former Republican hopeful Steve Forbes endured numerous remarks about his blinkless stare . . . while Al Gore has been called 'wooden' so often that he probably measures himself by the board foot.''

The word's usage is transatlantic. ''Lookism is a crime,'' a writer in London's Daily Telegraph observed in 1991, ''on the same level as racism, sexism, ageism, heterosexism, classism, etc.'' In Barre, Me., last year, a workshop was held on the topic ''Today's Pressures: Drugs, Alcohol, Sex and Lookism.''

A Reuters reviewer of the new Oxford Compact English Dictionary had a bright lead: ''So there you are, all decked out in chuddies, carpenters and a shrug with a brand-new buzz cut, and for some reason your best friend refuses to talk to you. It is probably a serious case of lookism.''