Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. One who advocates direct or radical action to secure a social or political goal in its entirety: "the maximalists . . . who want the undivided land” ( Arthur Hertzberg).
Wiktionary
- adj. art Preferring redundancy; tending to do or provide more rather than less
- n. A person with maximalist beliefs or tendencies; someone who prefers redundancy or excess
Etymologies
- From maximal + -ist, by analogy with minimalist (Wiktionary)
- Russian maksimalist, name applied in 1906 to an extreme splinter group of the Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party, ultimately from Latin maximum, maximum; see maximum. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Jessica Antola Designer Jonathan Adler's "maximalist" approach to design is apparent upon entering the approximately 2,500-square-foot New York duplex he shares with his husband, Barney's New York creative director, Simon Doonan.”
“In general, though, I follow the "maximalist" approach of trying out a bunch of things all at once and seeing what works the best.”
The Huffington Post: Chris Guillebeau: How to Conduct Your Own Business Audit
“As the Bang on a Can All-Stars 'all-Reich program Thursday at Strathmore amply demonstrated, the composer's musical means may be minimal -- layering simple lines of rhythm, shifting a repeated fragment of melody out of phase with itself, varying the color of a relentlessly hammered chord by spotlighting individual instruments -- but the resulting textures bubble and scintillate with an engagingly "maximalist" energy.”
The Washington Post: Music review of Bang on a Can All-Stars at Strathmore Hall
“It will also force Kurdish leaders to re-evaluate their insistence on "maximalist" demands that threatened to unravel Iraq.”
“Squashed uneasily between Russia and the smug democracies of Western Europe, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary all want to join NATO. One school of thought in the administration, led by Lynn Davis, under secretary of state for international-security affairs, pressed what one European diplomat calls a "maximalist" approach.”
“That kind of "maximalist" strategy is unrealistic because many law schools simply do not have the resources to create new classes, programs, and research centers.”
“I would agree, however, that most people that come to mind when I use the word "maximalist" would definately think Dever is himself a minimalist.”
“You seem to be using "maximalist" to refer to the position that the Bible is all true and that any criticism of the historicity of the bible makes one a minimalist.”
“In considering William Wordsworth's sonnet "Composed upon Westminster Bridge" and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the essay investigates the virtues and vices of ambience, as opposed to a more Burkean, "maximalist" view of the natural world.”
“This interpretation is faithful to anti-nationalist impulses behind the Bill of Rights, and it avoids the "maximalist" interpretation of the Amendment that would prohibit even much state regulation.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘maximalist’.
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-alist
See the comments under alist for the origin of this list.
removalist, agriculturalist, constitutionalist, nationalist, colloquialist, maximalist, serialist, zimbalist, journalist, cruciverbalist, imperialist, industrialist and 88 more...
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Loxodont's list
circumambulate, atelectasis, paramount, therefore, apotropaic, facture, identity, dome, lecture, cannibal, catatonia, rite and 119 more...
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Addenda to the 1923 Printing of Webst...
Many of these words first came into common usage during World War I, and reflect not only the technological and scientific leaps of the early part of the 20th century, but the new experience of glo...
abri, ace, acidosis, airdrome, air fleet, airplane, air raid, airworthy, altimeter, anaphylaxis, anociassociation, anti-aircraft and 292 more...
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Nihilarity
Absurdity, dark art, radicalism, anger, tragic irony, and nothingness. Tee-hee!
nihilism, dada, futurism, rayonism, postmodernity, deconstruction, surrealism, existentialism, reductio ad absurdum, discordianism, operation mindfuck, amorality and 127 more...
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Our Kevin
Words used by Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister of Australia. Invented by the man, uttered incessantly, or both.
passthrough, brekkers, maximalist, therefore, working families, decisive, action, stability, nation building, global financial ..., buffer, tough times and 16 more...
Tweets
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