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View synonyms for nihilistic

nihilistic

[ nahy-uh-lis-tik ]

adjective

  1. of or believing in nihilism, or the total rejection of established laws and institutions:

    An exhibition of nihilistic art—now there's an oxymoron!

  2. embracing anarchy, terrorism, and destruction:

    nihilistic tactics learned in a terrorist bootcamp.

  3. Philosophy. of or believing in an extreme form of skepticism; belief in nothingness.


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Other Words From

  • nihil·isti·cal·ly adverb
  • anti·nihil·istic adjective
  • nonni·hil·istic adjective
  • unni·hil·istic adjective

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Word History and Origins

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Example Sentences

In the year since, I’ve started to wonder if my fascination with cli-fi is purely nihilistic.

Suffice to say that this time around, the show is less about ultra-privileged mean girls destroying each other for kicks than it is about relatively decent people getting lured into those same nihilistic power struggles.

From Time

Dadaists at Zürich’s Cabaret Voltaire in 1916 pioneered a nihilistic aesthetic, born out of the trauma of World War I, that is surely a great-grandparent of lol nothing matters GIFs.

From Time

Braird, the older, meanwhile, was entering his teens, differentiating and waxing nihilistic.

Bright lights, big city — they’re still bright, still big and there’s still something bitterly nihilistic in the mix.

Secretary of State John Kerry called the group, “ugly, savage, inexplicable, nihilistic, valueless evil.”

That may be partially because The Big Lebowski is their most nihilistic presentation.

They are poached instead of hard-boiled, boasting anti-heroes with nihilistic worldviews who are nevertheless vulnerable.

The answer is that it was not, being instead a series of dissociated gestures that flopped right into a nihilistic void.

They say they will “listen to the Web,” which was the central arena of their nihilistic campaign, “and decide what to do.”

These theories were very bold in their negation, and it is for this reason that they have been called "nihilistic."

The government has done much to stamp out the curse of nihilistic propaganda, and many members of the society have fled.

I am sure that you can trust him, whether or not there is anything in Poubalov's nihilistic suggestions.

Had she not heard how the great body of the nihilistic society was made up of the poor?

The most violently nihilistic of doctrines was fanned into an idolatry puerile and meek.

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nihilismnihility