Word.ws English Dictionary

maxim

UK/ˈmæk.sɪm//ˈmæk.sɪm/

maxim noun: a self-evident axiom or premise; a pithy expression of a general principle or rule. Also the alternative letter-case form of Maxim.

Noun (1)

maxim (plural maxims)

  1. (archaic) A self-evident axiom or premise; a pithy expression of a general principle or rule.
  2. A precept; a succinct statement or observation of a rule of conduct or moral teaching.
    • In every age and country of the world men must have attended to the characters, designs, and actions of one another, and many reputable rules and maxims for the conduct of human life, must have been laid down and approved of by common consent.1776, Wealth of Nations, archived from the original on 26 Jun 2008, page 768
    • It was impossible to imagine anything more cold or comfortless, while it was a task of no small dexterity to thread your way through the labyrinth of trunks, bandboxes, &c.; for it had of late years become a maxim with Lady Anne that nothing ought to be thrown or given away:...1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter V, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 42
    Synonyms:
    Synonym: aphorism

Proper noun capitalized: Maxim

Maxim (plural Maxims)

  1. A surname

Noun (2) capitalized: Maxim

Maxim (plural Maxims)

  1. The Maxim gun, a British machine gun of various calibres used by the British army from 1889 until World War I.
    • Again we went on, and climbed the false immensity of another ridge, when several rifles and a maxim opened upon us, and very close they were.1928, Edmund Blunden, Undertones of War, Penguin, published 2010, page 104
    Synonyms:
    Maxim gun, Vickers gun
  2. Any machine gun that derives from the design pattern of Maxim's patented design
  3. (informal, obsolete) A machine gun

Also used as

maxim is also the alternative letter-case form of Maxim.

maxim meaning in Hindi, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada

maxim in Hindi

मैक्सिम

maxim in Bengali

ম্যাক্সিম

maxim in Malayalam

മാക്സിം

maxim in Kannada

ಮ್ಯಾಕ್ಸಿಮ್
More languagesFewer languages
maxim in Gujarati
મેક્સિમ
maxim in Nepali
म्याक्सिम
maxim in Tagalog
pananabi
maxim in Arabic
حِكْمَة ḥikma
maxim in Thai
คติบท

Examples of maxim in a sentence

  • Non sequitur humor is non-Gricean as it intentionally disobeys the maxim of relation.
  • Taoist medicine follows the maxim of "first do no harm".
  • A flout is when someone deliberately and ostentatiously contravenes a maxim.

All 24 example sentences with maxim

Synonyms of maxim

All synonyms of maxim

Forms of maxim

Noun
pluralmaxims
pluralMaxims
Proper noun
pluralMaxims
alternative formMaxim gun
alternative formmaxim gun
alternative formmaxim

Plural of maxim: maxims

Origin of maxim

From Anglo-Norman maxime and Middle French maxime, from Late Latin maxima (“axiom”), noun use of the feminine singular form of Latin maximus (apparently as used in the phrase prōpositiō maxima (“greatest premise”)). Doublet of maxima.

From Sir Hiram Maxim.

* (machine guns): After the inventor Sir Hiram Maxim (1840-1916).

Words formed from maxim

Phrases with maxim

Questions about maxim

What does maxim mean?
Maxim means a self-evident axiom or premise; a pithy expression of a general principle or rule.
What is maxim in Hindi?
Maxim in Hindi is मैक्सिम. See Maxim meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is maxim?
Maxim can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce maxim?
Maxim is pronounced /ˈmæk.sɪm/ (UK).
What is the plural of maxim?
The plural of maxim is maxims.

Words near maxim in the dictionary

  1. maxillula
  2. maxillulae
  3. maxillule
  4. maxillules
  5. maxillæ
  6. maxim
  7. Maxim gun
  8. maxima
  9. maximae
  10. maximal
  11. maximal ideal

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: maxim (page history and authors); Maxim (page history and authors); maxim (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); maxim (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); maxim (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); maxim (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); maxim (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); maxim (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-maxim.ogg, en-au-maxim.ogg.

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