Nihilist | Define Nihilist at Dictionary.com

Historical Examples

A nihilist on a war footing would be considered Quaker-like in his symptoms.

I have already mentioned it as often given by a nihilist to one whom he believes may be one with him.

All the wildest phases of nihilist opinion in the sixties were already raging in Russia in the forties.

Concerning the woman for whose sake he became a nihilist, he never spoke.

And by this I do not mean to compare the nihilist writers with licentious ones, nor to convey any stigma by my words.

This nihilist leader is a woman, and her name is Zara de Echeveria.

Mr. Smith has been arrested as a nihilist, and the morning papers will announce that he has started on his journey to Siberia.

"Saberevski knew me to be a nihilist, and warned me against it that day," she said to me.

She knew how the nihilist societies all over the world were connected with each other.

British Dictionary definitions for nihilist Expand

a complete denial of all established authority and institutions

(philosophy) an extreme form of scepticism that systematically rejects all values, belief in existence, the possibility of communication, etc

a revolutionary doctrine of destruction for its own sake

the practice or promulgation of terrorism

Derived Forms

nihilist, noun, adjectivenihilistic, adjective

Word Origin

C19: from Latin nihil nothing + -ism, on the model of German Nihilismus

(in tsarist Russia) any of several revolutionary doctrines that upheld terrorism

Word Origin and History for nihilist Expand

1836 in the religious or philosophical sense, from French nihiliste, from Latin nihil (see nihilism). In the Russian political sense, it is recorded from 1871. Related: Nihilistic.

1817, "the doctrine of negation" (in reference to religion or morals), from German Nihilismus, from Latin nihil "nothing at all" (see nil), coined by German philosopher Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743-1819). In philosophy, an extreme form of skepticism (1836). The political sense was first used by German journalist Joseph von Grres (1776-1848). Turgenev used the Russian form of the word (nigilizm) in "Fathers and Children" (1862) and claimed to have invented it. With a capital N-, it refers to the Russian revolutionary anarchism of the period 1860-1917, supposedly so called because "nothing" that then existed found favor in their eyes.

nihilist in Medicine Expand

nihilism nihilism (n'-lz'm, n'-) n.

The belief that destruction of existing political or social institutions is necessary for future improvement.

A delusion, experienced in some mental disorders, that the world or one's mind, body, or self does not exist.

nihilist in Culture Expand

An approach to philosophy that holds that human life is meaningless and that all religions, laws, moral codes, and political systems are thoroughly empty and false. The term is from the Latin nihil, meaning nothing.

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Nihilist | Define Nihilist at Dictionary.com