Word.ws English Dictionary

peacenik

peacenik noun: someone who publicly opposes armed conflict in general, or a particular conflict, or who publicly opposes the proliferation of weapons.

Noun

peacenik (plural peaceniks or (rare) peaceniki)

  1. (derogatory, sometimes) Someone who publicly opposes armed conflict in general, or a particular conflict, or who publicly opposes the proliferation of weapons.
    • If I lift a finger, or my voice, I either throw my support behind those who would prefer a dead planet to a Red planet, or I throw my lot with the Peaceniki.1984 June 1, John K. R. Chisholm, “Arms race debate boring”, in K. J. Strachan, editor, The Expositor, Brantford, Ont.: Southam Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, “To the editor” section, page 4, column 6
    • [Robert] Gillette’s counsel seems one of despair—little or nothing can be done to halt the inexorable movement toward superpower conflict, so don’t be fooled by peaceniki bearing a message of hope.1984 August 31, Raymond Hansen, Judith Markoff, “‘Facade of Peace’ in Soviet Union”, in William F[rederick] Thomas, editor, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, Calif.: Times Mirror Company, →ISSN, →OCLC...
    Synonyms:
    dove, pacifist

Examples of peacenik in a sentence

  • THE AMERICAN PEACENIKI / Even if the true believers have not been replaced with KGB agents when Americans visit, it is doubtful that most Russians would speak frankly.1986, Edmund W. Robb, Julia Robb, “The National Council of Churches and the Soviet Union”, in The Betrayal of the Church: Apostasy and...
  • ps: but that is all a part of the Secret Christian Conspiracy to Drive PeaceNiki Into the Moral Quandary about whether or not they are Tools of the Devil or On God's Side....1991 March 12, Andrew F. Hampe, “One More Chorus Before I Go....”, in talk.bizarre (Usenet), archived from the original on 16 Aug 2025:
  • Tech-hedz & Peaceniki and all others interested in the preparations for the Lunacy that is called Gulf War, part 2 are invited to visit this marvellous web-site.2002 December 11, B55, “'The Fire this time'”, in nl.politiek (Usenet), archived from the original on 16 Aug 2025:
  • The "peaceniki" I know are opposed to human rights violations, whether from Saddam Hussein, Uncle Sam, or others.2003 March 25, Derek N.P.F. Juhl, “The Iraqi Children.”, in alt.religion.buddhism.nichiren (Usenet), archived from the original on 16 Aug...

Synonyms of peacenik

Forms of peacenik

pluralpeaceniks
plural (rare)peaceniki

Origin of peacenik

From peace + -nik.

Questions about peacenik

What does peacenik mean?
Peacenik means someone who publicly opposes armed conflict in general, or a particular conflict, or who publicly opposes the proliferation of weapons.
How do you use peacenik in a sentence?
THE AMERICAN PEACENIKI / Even if the true believers have not been replaced with KGB agents when Americans visit, it is doubtful that most Russians would speak frankly.
What part of speech is peacenik?
Peacenik is a noun.
What is the plural of peacenik?
The plural of peacenik is peaceniks.

Words near peacenik in the dictionary

  1. peacemonger
  2. peacemongering
  3. peacemongers
  4. peacen
  5. peacened
  6. peacenik
  7. peaceniki
  8. peaceniks
  9. peacening
  10. peacens
  11. peaces

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: peacenik (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-peacenik.wav.

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