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nihilist - 3 dictionary results

ni⋅hil⋅ism

[nahy-uh-liz-uhm, nee-]
–noun
1. total rejection of established laws and institutions.
2. anarchy, terrorism, or other revolutionary activity.
3. total and absolute destructiveness, esp. toward the world at large and including oneself: the power-mad nihilism that marked Hitler's last years.
4. Philosophy.
a. an extreme form of skepticism: the denial of all real existence or the possibility of an objective basis for truth.
b. nothingness or nonexistence.
5. (sometimes initial capital letter) the principles of a Russian revolutionary group, active in the latter half of the 19th century, holding that existing social and political institutions must be destroyed in order to clear the way for a new state of society and employing extreme measures, including terrorism and assassination.
6. annihilation of the self, or the individual consciousness, esp. as an aspect of mystical experience.

Origin:
1810–20; < L nihil nothing (var. of nihilum; see nil ) + -ism


ni⋅hil⋅ist, noun, adjective
ni⋅hil⋅is⋅tic, adjective
ni·hil·ism   (nī'ə-lĭz'əm, nē'-)   
n.  
  1. Philosophy
    1. An extreme form of skepticism that denies all existence.
    2. A doctrine holding that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated.
  2. Rejection of all distinctions in moral or religious value and a willingness to repudiate all previous theories of morality or religious belief.
  3. The belief that destruction of existing political or social institutions is necessary for future improvement.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.

Nihilist

Ni"hil*ist\, n. [Cf. F. nihiliste. See Nihilism.]

1. One who advocates the doctrine of nihilism; one who believes or teaches that nothing can be known, or asserted to exist.

2. (Politics) A member of a secret association (esp. in Russia), which is devoted to the destruction of the present political, religious, and social institutions.
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