ressentiment
Americannoun
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any cautious, defeatist, or cynical attitude based on the belief that the individual and human institutions exist in a hostile or indifferent universe or society.
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an oppressive awareness of the futility of trying to improve one's status in life or in society.
Etymology
Origin of ressentiment
From French, dating back to 1940–45; see origin at resentment
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
His mixture of insult, ressentiment, and buffoonery is a work of genius.
From Salon ● Feb. 27, 2025
Even though he never used the word, the first thinker to identify how ressentiment would emerge from modern ideals of an egalitarian and commercial society was Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 8, 2016
Stephen’s ressentiment drives him to more and more desperate choices, less and less realistically, culminating in an absurd and anticlimactic trip across the country.
From New York Times ● Oct. 24, 2016
The recent explosions of ressentiment against writers and journalists as well as against politicians, technocrats, businessmen, and bankers reveal how Rousseau’s history of the human heart is still playing itself out among the disaffected.
From The New Yorker ● Jul. 25, 2016
For college students, October is when the excitement wears off and gives way to Nietzschean ressentiment.
From Slate ● Oct. 14, 2014
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
