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anarchist

nounadjectiveattested in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//ˈæn.ə.kɪst//
  • United States//ˈæn.ɑɹ.kɪst//

One who believes in or advocates the absence of hierarchy and authority in most forms (compare anarchism), especially one who works toward the realization of such.

noun

  1. 1

    One who believes in or advocates the absence of hierarchy and authority in most forms (compare anarchism), especially one who works toward the realization of such.

    Eh bien ! vous êtes démocrate ? — Non. — Quoi ! vous seriez monarchique ? — Non. — Constitutionnel ? — Dieu m’en garde. — Vous êtes donc aristocrate ? — Point du tout. — Vous voulez un gouvernement mixte ? — Encore moins. — Qu’êtes-vous donc ? — Je suis anarchiste.

    But nothing has revived anarchism like globalization. Anarchists are now battling what they see as a concentration of power in multinational corporations.

  2. 2

    One who disregards laws and social norms as a form of rebellion against authority.

  3. 3

    One who promotes chaos and lawlessness.

    You have heard that Anarchists throw bombs, that they believe in violence, and that Anarchy means disorder and chaos.

  4. 4

    One who resents outside control or influence on their life, in particular a government, and therefore desires the absence of political control.

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *né Proto-Indo-European *n̥- Proto-Hellenic *ə- Ancient Greek ἀ- (a-) Proto-Indo-European *h₂er-der.? Proto-Indo-European *h₂ergʰ-der.? Ancient Greek ἄρχω (árkhō) Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Hellenic *-ā́ Ancient Greek -ᾱ (-ā) Ancient Greek -η (-ē) Ancient Greek ἀρχή (arkhḗ) Ancient Greek -ος (-os) Ancient Greek ἄναρχος (ánarkhos) Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-i-eh₂ Proto-Hellenic *-íā Ancient Greek -ῐ́ᾱ (-ĭ́ā) Ancient Greek ἀναρχία (anarkhía)bor. French anarchie Proto-Indo-European *-id- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti Proto-Hellenic *-íďďō Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō) Proto-Hellenic *-tās Ancient Greek -τής (-tḗs) Ancient Greek -ῐστής (-ĭstḗs)bor. Latin -istabor. French -iste French anarchisteder. English anarchist From French anarchiste, from Ancient Greek ἀναρχία (anarkhía) from the roots ἀν- (an-, “without”) + ἀρχή (arkhḗ, “rule”), equivalent to anarchy + -ist.

adjective

  1. 1

    rareRelating to anarchism or to anarchists; anarchistic.

Forms

plural
anarchists
comparative
more anarchist
superlative
most anarchist
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).