Word.ws English Dictionary

regressive left

regressive left noun: a characterization of the left which suggests that it paradoxically holds reactionary views by its tolerance of illiberal principles and ideologies (such as extremist Islamism) for the sake of multiculturalism and cultural relativism.

Noun

regressive left

  1. (derogatory) A characterization of the left which suggests that it paradoxically holds reactionary views by its tolerance of illiberal principles and ideologies (such as extremist Islamism) for the sake of multiculturalism and cultural relativism.

Origin of regressive left

The earliest use may be from a joke post on the Internet in 1998. Attested in print as early as 2002 in Chuck Morse’s The Gramsci Factor, and later popularized by Maajid Nawaz in 2012.

Words formed from regressive left

Questions about regressive left

What does regressive left mean?
Regressive left means a characterization of the left which suggests that it paradoxically holds reactionary views by its tolerance of illiberal principles and ideologies (such as extremist Islamism) for the sake of multiculturalism and cultural relativism.
What part of speech is regressive left?
Regressive left is a noun.

Words near regressive left in the dictionary

  1. regressive
  2. regressive argument
  3. regressive arguments
  4. regressive assimilation
  5. regressive assimilations
  6. regressive left
  7. regressive leftism
  8. regressive leftist
  9. regressive leftists
  10. regressively
  11. regressiveness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: regressive left (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: regressive left US.ogg.

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