expansivist
expansivist adjective: tending toward maximizing the applicability or scope (of something).
Adjective
expansivist (comparative more expansivist, superlative most expansivist)
- Tending toward maximizing the applicability or scope (of something)
- The prevailing view, which corresponds to that of the expansivist school, considers "protection of one's own nationals" as part of the customary right of self-defense under article 51 and sees "self" in self-defense as including the nationals of a state.1989, Richard J. Erickson, Legitimate Use of Military Force Against State-sponsored International Terrorism, page 182
- This expansivist view is presidency-weighted, regarding the maximization of presidential power as virtually the sine qua non of American politics.1989, William F. Grover, The President as Prisoner, page 18
Noun
expansivist (plural expansivists)
- One with an expansivist attitude toward or definition of something.
- Tracing their twentieth century origins back to Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt, expansivists were energized by FDR's leadership.1989, William F. Grover, The President as Prisoner, page 8
- Widely labelled a genocide by politicians, journalists, and some genocide studies scholars, the judgment of these expansivists is called into question because Kosovar Albanians were in the main expelled from Serbia rather than liquidated.2012, Ken Booth, The Kosovo Tragedy: The Human Rights Dimensions, page 41
Examples of expansivist in a sentence
- First, this expansivist view would make public health limitless in scope.2008, Rosamond Rhodes, Leslie P. Francis, Anita Silvers, The Blackwell Guide to Medical Ethics, page 328:
- Charny's expansivist understanding of genocide even goes as far as claiming that massive deaths resulting from the meltdown of a nuclear reactor would count as genocide.2012, Ken Booth, The Kosovo Tragedy: The Human Rights Dimensions, page 32:
- As for Mark and Matthew, they are speaking to exclusivist adherents to the Yahweh faith of Israel and arguing for an inclusivist, expansivist approach to that faith.2019, Don Erickson, A Life Lived and Laid Down for Friends, page 50:
- In the extreme, expansivists assert that we should stop talking of “discovering truth” altogether.2015, Timothy P. Jackson, Political Agape: Christian Love and Liberal Democracy, page 126:
Forms of expansivist
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more expansivist |
| superlative | most expansivist |
| Noun | |
| plural | expansivists |
Origin of expansivist
From expansive + -ist.
Questions about expansivist
- What does expansivist mean?
- Expansivist means tending toward maximizing the applicability or scope (of something).
- How do you use expansivist in a sentence?
- First, this expansivist view would make public health limitless in scope.
- What part of speech is expansivist?
- Expansivist can be an adjective or a noun.
Words near expansivist in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: expansivist (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: “expansivist.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/expansivist. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.