anarchist
Americannoun
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anarchists
plural
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a person who seeks to overturn by violence all constituted forms and institutions of society and government, with no purpose of establishing any other system of order in the place of that destroyed.
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a person who promotes disorder or excites revolt against any established rule, law, or custom.
noun
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a person who advocates the abolition of government and a social system based on voluntary cooperation
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a person who causes disorder or upheaval
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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semianarchistnoun
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anarchisticadjective
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nonanarchisticadjective
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pseudoanarchisticadjective
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semianarchisticadjective
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unanarchisticadjective
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of anarchist
Explanation
Should you ever decide to form a club for anarchists, you might want to keep this in mind: Running for club president will make you unpopular, since anarchists prefer a stateless society and distrust ruling powers. When the Sex Pistols released "Anarchy in the UK" in 1976, they clashed with Margaret Thatcher's ideal of conservative England. Translated from the Greek, by way of Middle Latin, anarchy means "without a leader," and that's what an anarchist is all about. Given that anarchists reject authority, it's not surprising that there are many types of anarchism, ranging from those that promote the perfect liberty of the individual to those that endorse communist or socialist ideas.
Vocabulary lists containing anarchist
Play by the Rules: Arch
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"The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak, Part Eight
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Life Is So Good
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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.
See Examples For:
Other intellectual influences include Jean Grenier, who had taught him philosophy in Algeria, and his contemporary Simone Weil, a mystic and anarchist.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 8, 2026
Kushner's Creation Lake is a spy thriller which sees an American woman infiltrate a radical anarchist collective in rural France.
From BBC ● Sep. 16, 2024
Outside of the fluttering romance plot and teen hijinks, Kat’s anarchist vibe was bitingly cool, self-assured and unyielding in her feminism and beliefs.
From Salon ● Apr. 8, 2024
“Unrest” is colder still, a documentary-style rewind to a watch factory in 1870s Switzerland whose anarchist employees agitated for a better future that we know isn’t going to happen.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 7, 2024
It is as if anyone who proposed repealing a stupid law, like the one forbidding interracial marriage, must be a black-cloaked, bomb-clutching anarchist.
From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker
Tattered sweaters, linen T-shirts, parachute shirts and “bondage suits” are printed with slogans that read “Only anarchists are pretty” and “Anarchist punk gang.”
From Los Angeles Times ● May 18, 2026
He discovered a public more concerned with Progressive Era anti-monopoly reforms that Republicans cast as anti-business, a postwar economic slump, and acts of domestic terrorism committed by anarchists.
From Slate ● Mar. 10, 2026
Naturally, a lot of it was focused on immigrants, hundreds of whom were deported under suspicion of being anarchists.
From Salon ● Dec. 21, 2025
It wasn’t anarchists that ended the ’70s malaise.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 9, 2025
The Bonnot Gang was a group of anarchists who were more criminal than political.
From "The Mona Lisa Vanishes" by Nicholas Day
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.
