Word.ws English Dictionary

Machiavelian

Machiavelian is the alternative form of Machiavellian.

Meaning of Machiavellian

Adjective

Machiavellian (comparative more Machiavellian, superlative most Machiavellian)

  1. Attempting to achieve goals by cunning, scheming, and unscrupulous methods, especially in politics.
    • Iago is the Machiavellian antagonist in William Shakespeare's play Othello.
  2. Related to the philosophical system of Niccolò Machiavelli.
    • As Dr. Spalding notes, the connection that Washington drew "between private morality and national character, between virtue and happiness, hardly seems Machiavellian."2006, Paul Rahe, Machiavelli's Liberal Republican Legacy

See all 3 meanings of machiavellian

Forms of Machiavelian

comparativemore Machiavelian
superlativemost Machiavelian

Words formed from Machiavelian

Questions about Machiavelian

What is Machiavelian the alternative form of?
Machiavelian is the alternative form of Machiavellian.

Words near Machiavelian in the dictionary

  1. Machian
  2. Machias
  3. Machias Seal Island
  4. Machiasport
  5. Machiavel
  6. Machiavelian
  7. Machiavelianism
  8. Machiavelism
  9. Machiavelli
  10. machiavellian
  11. Machiavellianism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Machiavelian (page history and authors); Machiavellian (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: “Machiavelian.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/machiavelian. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.