Arendt

American  

[air-uhnt, ahr-] / ˈɛər ənt, ˈɑr- /

noun

1. Hannah, 1906–75, U.S. author, political scientist, and teacher, born in Germany.

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Arendt British  

/ ˈɛərənt /

noun

1. Hannah. 1906–75, US political philosopher, born in Germany. Her publications include The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) and Eichmann in Jerusalem (1961)

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Example Sentences

Freidenberg’s diaries reveal aspects of Soviet life that no one else dared to record, and shed light on the political system that, after Hannah Arendt, we have come to call totalitarian.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 24, 2026

Hannah Arendt wrote that fascism wouldn’t have developed the way it did without the Dreyfus affair, and briefly mentioned that Morès’ antisemitic activities shaped the way that unfolded.

From Slate • Mar. 2, 2026

The novel echoes thinkers like Hannah Arendt in pointing out how true-believing functionaries, the butt of ridicule in “normal” times, can help subsume all reason and decency to usurp a compliant and too-comfortable ruling class.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 12, 2025

As Arendt observed about the supporters of earlier totalitarian systems:

From Salon • Jun. 22, 2025

Hannah Arendt, the influential cultural critic who documented the perverse excesses of Nazism, would later write about the “banality of evil” that permeated German culture during the Nazi era.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee