nihilism

Also found in: Thesaurus, Medical, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

Related to nihilism: Moral nihilism

ni·hil·ism

(nī′ə-lĭz′əm, nē′-)

1. Philosophy The doctrine that nothing actually exists or that existence or values are meaningless.

2. Relentless negativity or cynicism suggesting an absence of values or beliefs: nihilism in postwar art.

a. Political belief or action that advocates or commits violence or terrorism without discernible constructive goals.

b. also Nihilism A diffuse, revolutionary movement of mid-19th-century Russia that scorned authority and tradition and believed in reason, materialism, and radical change in society and government through terrorism and assassination.

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

[Latin nihil, nothing; see ne in Indo-European roots + -ism.]

ni′hil·ist n.

ni′hil·is′tic adj.

ni′hil·is′ti·cal·ly adv.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

nihilism

(ˈnaɪɪˌlɪzəm)

1. a complete denial of all established authority and institutions

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

3. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) a revolutionary doctrine of destruction for its own sake

4. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) the practice or promulgation of terrorism

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

ˈnihilist n, adj

ˌnihilˈistic adj

Nihilism

(ˈnaɪɪˌlɪzəm)

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

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

ni•hil•ism

(ˈnaɪ əˌlɪz əm, ˈni-)

n.

1. total rejection of established laws and institutions.

2. anarchy, terrorism, or other revolutionary activity.

a. the belief that all existence is senseless and that there is no possibility of an objective basis for truth.

b. nothingness or nonexistence.

4. (cap.) a 19th-century Russian political philosophy advocating the violent destruction of social and political institutions to make way for a new society.

[1810–20; < Latin nihil nothing (variant of nihilum; see nil) + -ism]

ni′hil•ist, n., adj.

ni`hil•is′tic, adj.

nihilism

the belief that existence is not real and that there can be no objective basis of truth, a form of extreme skepticism. Cf. ethical nihilism. — nihilist, n., adj.

nihilism

noun

1. negativity, rejection, denial, scepticism, cynicism, pessimism, renunciation, atheism, repudiation, agnosticism, unbelief, abnegation These disillusioned students embraced agnosticism, atheism, and nihilism.

2. anarchy, disorder, lawlessness This moral nihilism has proved both irresponsible and politically counter-productive.

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

Translations

nihilizmus

Nihilismus

μηδενισμός

nihilismi

nihilizam

nihilism

[ˈnaɪɪlɪzəm] N → nihilismo m

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

nihilism

[ˈnaɪɪlɪzəm] n → nihilisme m

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

nihilism

n → Nihilismus m

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

nihilism

[ˈnaɪɪˌlɪz/əm] n → nichilismo

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

ni·hil·ism

n. nihilismo, en psiquiatría una idea ilusoria en la cual nada es real o inexistente.

English-Spanish Medical Dictionary © Farlex 2012

Mentioned in ?

References in classic literature ?

In the penultimate verse he makes known his discovery concerning the root of modern Nihilism and indifference,--i.e., that modern man has no goal, no aim, no ideals

View in context

But there was also about him an indescribable air which no mechanic could have acquired in the practice of his handicraft however dishonestly exercised: the air common to men who live on the vices, the follies, or the baser fears of mankind; the air of moral nihilism common to keepers of gambling hells and disorderly houses; to private detectives and inquiry agents; to drink sellers and, I should say, to the sellers of invigorating electric belts and to the inventors of patent medicines.

View in context

Summary: Religious nihilism never built empires, and its conquests, in spite of the blood trail, were ephemeral.

The culture war is now bloodier and more explosive

Moral nihilism or the notion "that nothing is morally good, bad, wrong, right, etc " is another of countless issues.

Need for "universal morality" or different concepts thereof in different nations?

Void of meaning and loss of freedom: boom of nihilism forms

The West's multilateral war against Islam

Construing nihilism as the eroding of foundations, the loss of objective values, and the dissolution of the strong structures that have their bases in metaphysics, Sebo explores how it could be a mechanism for enhancing the proper functioning of democracy in Slovakian society and the healing of the internal nihil-inclinations of the Church.

Nihilism-In-Tension: A Theology of Kenosis as a Response to Some Nihilistic Inclinations in the Context of Contemporary Slovakia

The curse is best called nihilism, and was diagnosed most famously by Nietzsche, whom Picabia adored: "What does nihilism mean?

Francis Picabia: Museum Of Modern Art, New York

It presents the case that any attempt to understand education as if it were a kind of technological science that results in nihilism. Secondly, Rosen provides a suggestive philosophy of education of his own that reinstates the integrity of education as a praxis.

Stanley Rosen as Philosopher of Education

The phenomenon of nihilism, the attempt at experimenting in theory and practice the potency of nothingness, cannot readily be expressed by a clear and univocal definition; no wonder, then, that all its investigators have brought to light a multifarious variety of names, concepts, and events.

Possenti, Vittorio. Nihilism and Metaphysics: The Third Voyage

The black-and-white polish of "Concrete Night" is as sleek and lovely as it was in "3 Rooms," but this mawkish bummer about an ill-used teenage boy wandering around a surreally forbidding Helsinki is marred by a facile nihilism that trivializes the urban alienation it seeks to illuminate.

Concrete Night

Though Paul professes nihilism, he is fascinated by religious faith.

bookclub

PROVOCATIVE A frightening journey into nihilism in the Outback

Return of a lost gem

Full browser ?

CITE

Site: Follow: Share:

Open / Close

Noun	1.	nihilism - a revolutionary doctrine that advocates destruction of the social system for its own sake doctrine, ism, philosophical system, philosophy, school of thought - a belief (or system of beliefs) accepted as authoritative by some group or school
	2.	nihilism - the delusion that things (or everything, including the self) do not exist; a sense that everything is unreal nihilistic delusion delusion, psychotic belief - (psychology) an erroneous belief that is held in the face of evidence to the contrary
	3.	nihilism - complete denial of all established authority and institutions anarchy, lawlessness - a state of lawlessness and disorder (usually resulting from a failure of government)