nihilistic
Americanadjective
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of or believing in nihilism, or the total rejection of established laws and institutions.
An exhibition of nihilistic art—now there's an oxymoron!
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embracing anarchy, terrorism, and destruction.
nihilistic tactics learned in a terrorist bootcamp.
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Philosophy. of or believing in an extreme form of skepticism; belief in nothingness.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of nihilistic
Explanation
A nihilistic person believes that life is meaningless. If you go through your teenage years in a nihilistic frame of mind, nothing seems to matter to you. Someone who's nihilistic believes in the philosophy of nihilism, which embraces the idea that life as we know it is useless. If you're nihilistic, you don't believe in anything — not religion, a moral code, love. Being nihilistic is also closely related to the political philosophy of anarchism, a belief that all social structures need to be destroyed before a new, better society can be developed.
Vocabulary lists containing nihilistic
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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.
Duchamp’s seeming disinterest often revealed itself to be something far more venomous, as when he fantasized about a nihilistic readymade: “Use a Rembrandt as an ironing board.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
This is a losing battle by definition, one that testifies to the nihilistic self-hatred and appetite for self-destruction that Baudrillard observed in 2002.
From Salon ● Feb. 8, 2026
His rising stature, however, exposed him to the darker elements of life on the internet: cynical attitudes, nihilistic teardowns, simplistic posts willingly ignorant of nuance and context—the antithesis of everything he seemed to live by.
From Slate ● Nov. 1, 2025
“Anniversary” is a deeply nihilistic film that can’t be described as a cautionary tale — that horse has already left the barn.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 31, 2025
The Threepenny Opera was a kind of Trainspotting for the late 1920s, presenting the middle classes with a grimy, warts-and-all vision of the alienated, nihilistic underclass.
From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
