bellicist

English

Etymology

From Latin bellicus (“of or pertaining to war; warlike”), +‎ -ist; possibly adapted from the French neologism belliciste (about Bismarck, 1871; in Émile Faguet, 1908).

Noun

bellicist (plural bellicists)

An adherent of bellicism; one who advocates war.
The bellicist was sure to advocate an end to the policy of appeasement.
- 1912, Norman Angell, Peace Theories and the Balkan War, page 19:
  Or, if you deem that that word connotes non-resistance, though to the immense bulk of Pacifists it does not, you would be an anti-Bellicist, to use a dreadful word coined by M. Emile Faguet in the discussion of this matter. [Refers to the book: Émile Faguet, Le Pacifisme (French), 1908.]
- 1919, The Living Age, vol. 303, Oct-Dec 1919, page 173:
  As for what are called ‘war books,’ whether written from the pacifist or bellicist point of view, more or less brilliant reporting with emphatic or cynical anecdotes, surely there has been enough of them in the United States as well as in France and in England.
- 1942, Contemporary Japan: A Review of Far Eastern Affairs, vol. 11, No. 1, Jan 1942, page 220-221:
  It may be that this standard definition errs, in representing every state structure as essentially based on conflict: it involves, as the writer pointed out in an address delivered long ago in 1915, a “bellicist theory of state structure.” […] It may be well, therefore, to discard the “bellicist” idea of a state essentially based on conflict and involving a superior body which forcibly imposes its will on the mass. [Refers to the paper: Dr. Thomas Baty, "The Bellicist Theory of State Structure", 1915.]
- 2008, David P. Barash, Charles P. Webel, Peace and Conflict Studies, page 31:
  British historian Michael Howard introduced the term bellicist to refer to cultures “almost universal in the past, far from extinct in our own day, in which the setting of contentious issues by armed conflict is regarded as natural, inevitable and right.”

Synonyms

Antonyms

Translations

warmonger — see warmonger

Adjective

bellicist (comparative more bellicist, superlative most bellicist)

Of or relating to bellicism, a bellicist, bellicists, advocating war, who is war-centered or war-oriented.

Synonyms

Antonyms

Translations

of or relating to bellicism, bellicists

French: belliciste (fr)
German: bellizistisch (de), kriegstreiberisch
Portuguese: belicista (pt)

Related terms

militarist