nominalism
(in medieval philosophy) the doctrine that general or abstract words do not stand for objectively existing entities and that universals are no more than names assigned to them.: Compare conceptualism, realism (def. 5a).
Origin of nominalism
1Other words from nominalism
- nom·i·nal·ist, noun
- nom·i·nal·is·tic, adjective
- nom·i·nal·is·ti·cal·ly, adverb
- non·nom·i·nal·is·tic, adjective
- un·nom·i·nal·is·tic, adjective
Words Nearby nominalism
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use nominalism in a sentence
His plan was to make theology plain and simple by founding it on the philosophical principles of nominalism.
This gives a wrong impression about nominalism, that it was banned in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
The Outline of History: Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind | Herbert George WellsRosmini, in an elaborate criticism, complains that Stewart did not perceive the inevitable tendency of nominalism to materialism.
The English Utilitarians, Volume I. | Leslie StephenOckham in particular falls very short of what I had expected; and his nominalism is strangely different from that of Berkeley.
Thus far nominalism triumphs; but now we arrive at the physical sciences, properly so called.
British Dictionary definitions for nominalism
/ (ˈnɒmɪnəˌlɪzəm) /
the philosophical theory that the variety of objects to which a single general word, such as dog, applies have nothing in common but the name: Compare conceptualism, realism
Derived forms of nominalism
- nominalist, noun, adjective
- nominalistic, adjective
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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