nihilistic
Americanadjective
-
of or believing in nihilism, or the total rejection of established laws and institutions.
An exhibition of nihilistic art—now there's an oxymoron!
-
embracing anarchy, terrorism, and destruction.
nihilistic tactics learned in a terrorist bootcamp.
-
Philosophy. of or believing in an extreme form of skepticism; belief in nothingness.
Other Word Forms
- antinihilistic adjective
- nihilistically adverb
- nonnihilistic adjective
- unnihilistic adjective
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.
“They’re so principled and motivated, even if it’s in a nihilistic way,” she said.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 20, 2025
Via a wild final act, the nihilistic streak seen in many of Mr. Lanthimos’s previous movies emerges again, this time in an especially mordant way.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 23, 2025
The FBI recently recognised a new category of threat called nihilistic violent extremism or NVE, defined by a general hostility to society and desire for chaos rather than a sharply defined ideology.
From BBC • Sep. 19, 2025
One cannot demonstrate this like a mathematical proof, but this carelessness, or callousness, about human life seems linked to fatalistic, even nihilistic attitudes.
From Salon • Apr. 5, 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
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.
