Word.ws English Dictionary

limitationist

limitationist adjective: supporting or believing in a certain limitation.

Adjective

limitationist (comparative more limitationist, superlative most limitationist)

  1. Supporting or believing in a certain limitation.
    • Thus, to a reader who was also a listener, the tone of the article could have conveyed a less encompassing, indeed limitationist, notion of containment than the text itself did.1974, Charles Gati, “Mr. X Reassessed: The Meaning of Containment”, in Caging the Bear: Containment and the Cold War, Indianapolis, I.N.; New York, N.Y.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., →ISBN, pages...
    • The word "nativism" first appeared in the 1830s. It described one part of the limitationist strain that ran through America for a century.1994, Roy Howard Beck, Re-Charting America's Future, Petoskey, M.I.: The Social Contract Press, →ISBN, page 131

Noun

limitationist (plural limitationists)

  1. Someone who supports or believes in a certain limitation.
    • Either demand, however, is unreasonable. It in effect invites the limitationists to shut up unless they exhibit detailed knowledge of government (and private) activities that they cannot realistically be expected to have.1983, Tibor R. Machan, M. Bruce Johnson, editors, Rights and Regulation: Ethical, Political, and Economic Issues, Cambridge, M.A.: Ballinger Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 124
    • Whether there needs to be a complete reassessment or whether the current system could be modified to work more effectively fuels the debate between limitationists and globalist^([sic]), which at heart is based upon realist premises.2007, Lawrence W. Serewicz, America at the Brink of Empire: Rusk, Kissinger, and the Vietnam War, Baton Rouge, M.I.: Louisiana State University Press, →ISBN, page 121

Examples of limitationist in a sentence

  • That so little work is done on adaptation is a function of both 'limitationist' and 'adaptationist' biases.2009, E. Lisa F. Schipper, Ian Burton, editors, The Earthscan Reader on Adaptation to Climate Change, London; Sterling, V.A.: Earthscan...
  • Over the past few months, I've become an A.I. limitationist.2023 July 13, David Brooks, “Why Douglas Hofstadter Is Changing His Mind on A.I.”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York...

Forms of limitationist

Adjective
comparativemore limitationist
superlativemost limitationist
Noun
plurallimitationists

Origin of limitationist

From limitation + -ist.

Questions about limitationist

What does limitationist mean?
Limitationist means supporting or believing in a certain limitation.
How do you use limitationist in a sentence?
That so little work is done on adaptation is a function of both 'limitationist' and 'adaptationist' biases.
What part of speech is limitationist?
Limitationist can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near limitationist in the dictionary

  1. limitary
  2. limitate
  3. limitating
  4. limitation
  5. limitational
  6. limitationist
  7. limitationists
  8. limitations
  9. limitative
  10. limitatively
  11. limited

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: limitationist (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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