Word.ws English Dictionary

denialism

UK/dɪˈnaɪ(j)əlɪzəm/

denialism noun: the practice of rejecting propositions which are strongly supported by scientific or historical evidence, and often of seeking to influence policy processes and outcomes accordingly.

Noun

denialism (usually uncountable, plural denialisms)

  1. (usually) The practice of rejecting propositions which are strongly supported by scientific or historical evidence, and often of seeking to influence policy processes and outcomes accordingly.
    • climate denialism; vaccine denialism; Holocaust denialism
    • At this point Rudd confronts a new denialism. Just as John Howard was wrong to deny the confessional value of the apology, many Laborites are wrong to deny the abject failures of past generation policies.2008 February 16, Paul Kelly, The Australian
    Synonyms:
    negationism

Examples of denialism in a sentence

  • Denialism is an expansion, an intensification, of denial.2018 August 3, Keith Kahn-Harris, “Denialism: what drives people to reject the truth”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
  • In other words, the pattern of resistance to the coronavirus vaccines looks less like COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and more like COVID-19 denialism.2021 April 27, David A. Graham, “It’s Not Vaccine Hesitancy. It’s COVID-19 Denialism.”, in The Atlantic:

Synonyms of denialism

Forms of denialism

pluraldenialisms

Origin of denialism

From denial + -ism.

Words formed from denialism

Questions about denialism

What does denialism mean?
Denialism means the practice of rejecting propositions which are strongly supported by scientific or historical evidence, and often of seeking to influence policy processes and outcomes accordingly.
How do you use denialism in a sentence?
Denialism is an expansion, an intensification, of denial.
What part of speech is denialism?
Denialism is a noun.
How do you pronounce denialism?
Denialism is pronounced /dɪˈnaɪ(j)əlɪzəm/ (UK).
What is the plural of denialism?
The plural of denialism is denialisms.

Words near denialism in the dictionary

  1. denial of service
  2. denial of services
  3. denial-of-service attack
  4. denial-of-service attacks
  5. Denialgate
  6. denialism
  7. denialisms
  8. denialist
  9. denialistic
  10. denialists
  11. denials

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: denialism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “denialism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/denialism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.