Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One who attacks and seeks to overthrow traditional or popular ideas or institutions.
  • noun One who destroys sacred religious images.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A breaker or destroyer of images; a person conspicuously hostile to the use of images in Christian worship.
  • noun One of those Protestants of the Netherlands who, during the reign of Philip II., riotously destroyed the images in many of the Roman Catholic churches.
  • noun Hence Any destroyer, denouncer, or exposer of errors or impostures; one who systematically attacks cherished beliefs.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A breaker or destroyer of images or idols; a determined enemy of idol worship.
  • noun One who exposes or destroys impositions or shams; one who attacks cherished beliefs; a radical.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun One who destroys religious images or icons, especially an opponent of the Orthodox Church in the 8th and 9th centuries, or a Puritan during the European Reformation.
  • noun One who opposes orthodoxy and religion; one who adheres to the doctrine of iconoclasm.
  • noun One who attacks cherished beliefs.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a destroyer of images used in religious worship
  • noun someone who attacks cherished ideas or traditional institutions

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French iconoclaste, from Medieval Greek eikonoklastēs, smasher of religious images : eikono-, icono- + Greek -klastēs, breaker (from klān, klas-, to break).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Byzantine Greek εἰκονοκλάστης ("iconoclast", literally "image breaker").

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Examples

  • The 54-year-old iconoclast is everything his longtime readers would expect — articulate, witty, obstinate and enigmatic.

    Alan Moore Has No Hoorays for Hollywood | Disinformation 2008

  • Every iconoclast is a rabble-rouser, a prophet handing torches to the mob and leading them to storm the temples, smash the graven images, and burn the throne-room to the ground.

    Archive 2006-09-01 Hal Duncan 2006

  • Every iconoclast is a rebel, a prophet who knows the illegitimacy of the god-king's reign and how that may one day bring it down.

    The Sacred Domain Hal Duncan 2006

  • Every iconoclast is a rabble-rouser, a prophet handing torches to the mob and leading them to storm the temples, smash the graven images, and burn the throne-room to the ground.

    The Sacred Domain Hal Duncan 2006

  • Every iconoclast is a rebel, a prophet who knows the illegitimacy of the god-king's reign and how that may one day bring it down.

    Archive 2006-09-01 Hal Duncan 2006

  • Likewise, as a therapist, she could be described as an iconoclast.

    A Funny Time to Be Gay Ed Karvoski Jr. 1997

  • Likewise, as a therapist, she could be described as an iconoclast.

    A Funny Time to Be Gay Ed Karvoski Jr. 1997

  • Post "the sixties" everyone likes to be called an iconoclast.

    Frank Schaeffer: Divinity of Doubt Frank Schaeffer 2011

  • Post "the sixties" everyone likes to be called an iconoclast.

    Frank Schaeffer: Divinity of Doubt Frank Schaeffer 2011

  • Post "the sixties" everyone likes to be called an iconoclast.

    Frank Schaeffer: Divinity of Doubt Frank Schaeffer 2011

Comments

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  • A smashing word this is, just waiting to be smashed.

    January 19, 2010

  • Iconoclast and maverick can be positive or negative.

    October 13, 2014

  • somebody who attacks cherished beliefs or institutions

    Lady Gaga, in challenging what it means to be clothed, is an iconoclast for wearing a "meat dress" to a prominent awards show.

    October 11, 2016

  • Author Robert O. Paxton, in his book titled “The Anatomy of Fascism,” uses the term iconoclast to describe Friedrich Nietzsche and later generations of philosophers such as Sartre and Foucault. In my humble opinion, if there is any one philosopher who most embodies the term iconoclast, it is Nietzsche.

    September 19, 2023