maximalism
maximalism noun: the opposite of minimalism: a tendency toward excess.
Noun
maximalism (usually uncountable, plural maximalisms)
- The opposite of minimalism: a tendency toward excess.
- With its romantic harmonies out of Berlioz, the 4½-hour “Einstein” score marked a passage out of Minimalism into a new genre that John Rockwell dubbed “Maximalism.”[1981 October 25, Robert Coe, “Philip Glass Breaks Through”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
- The design trend known as maximalism has arrived in the workplace.2005 December 1, Elaine Louie, “A Maximalist Aesthetic Puts Playfulness to Work”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
- An ideology favoring radical or aggressive action to achieve expansive goals; the stance of maximalists.
- In other words, in contrast to supporters of Gahal and other advocates of territorial maximalism, they judged peace with their neighbors to be more important than Jewish sovereignty over as much of the Land of Israel as possible.1994, Mark A. Tessler, A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, →ISBN, page 469
- Maximalism, that is, a predisposition to seek unconditional victory, is one of these. Politico-military movements are almost always revolutionary in the sense that they propose to use violence to change the existing regime.2007 December 9, K. Deonandan, D. Close, From Revolutionary Movements to Political Parties: Cases from Latin America and Africa, Springer, →ISBN, page 10
Examples of maximalism in a sentence
- “Antlers have a kind of maximalism that satisfies our urge for things to be overdesigned,” said David Wolfe, the creative director of the Doneger Group, which forecasts fashion and retail trends.2007 April 26, Eric Wilson, “If There’s a Buck in It Somewhere”, in New York Times:
- Hot pink fits right into maximalism, which experienced a resurgence in recent years as a response to the cool minimalist aesthetic that dominated Instagram feeds for so long.2023 June 25, Lia Picard, “Barbiecore Is Surging Its Way into Home Décor and Interior Design”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
- Debates between advocates of territorial maximalism and supporters of territorial compromise place heavy emphasis on considerations of military security.2019 March 7, Rex Brynen, Echoes Of The Intifada: Regional Repercussions Of The Palestinian-israeli Conflict, Routledge, →ISBN:
Forms of maximalism
| plural | maximalisms |
|---|
Origin of maximalism
From maximal + -ism, by analogy with minimalism.
Phrases with maximalism
Questions about maximalism
- What does maximalism mean?
- Maximalism means the opposite of minimalism: a tendency toward excess.
- How do you use maximalism in a sentence?
- “Antlers have a kind of maximalism that satisfies our urge for things to be overdesigned,” said David Wolfe, the creative director of the Doneger Group, which forecasts fashion and retail trends.
- What part of speech is maximalism?
- Maximalism is a noun.
- What is the plural of maximalism?
- The plural of maximalism is maximalisms.
Words near maximalism in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: maximalism (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: “maximalism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/maximalism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.