maximalist

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   Preferring redundancy

   Preferring redundancy; tending to do or provide more rather than less.

   • Three elephantine examples of that trend have been in the news of late, and they call into question their underlying maximalist presumption that more is more.
   • Mr. Shadbolt's maximalist, when-in-doubt-be-vivid style capaciously suits “Monday's Warriors,” his novel of the wars between the Maoris and the British in New Zealand in the mid-19th century; […]
2. 2

   Aggressive, expansive.

   • Mr. Schmidt agreed that “both the Russians and the Americans want results,” but he warned that they have a long way to go from “maximalist” starting positions.
   • Administration diplomats have by now grown used to such maximalist posturing and they doubt that North Korea will go so far as to undermine the nuclear deal.
3. 3

   Relating to religious or Biblical maximalism.

   • Again, the progressive view was that the Mother of Jesus should receive all veneration for holiness, but not the title of mediator between God and man. Much of the Curia supported a “maximalist” cult of the Virgin.
   • The case of the Bar Kokhba Revolt is an excellent example of how far the Minimalist and Maximalist interpretations of biblical and even ancient history can be verified.
4. ›+ 8 more definitionsshow fewer

   1. 4

      Relating to far-left communism.

      • His inclusion in the official delegation to Moscow caused surprise today and was seen as indicative of the Italian Communists' aversion to Maximalist currents in international communism.
   2. 5

      A person with maximalist beliefs or tendencies

      A person with maximalist beliefs or tendencies; someone who prefers redundancy or excess, especially in the arts.

      • Concerning his own purpose in making music, Mr. Babbitt says he would call himself a maximalist: “I try to make music as much as it has ever been or as much as it could be. I may try to put too much into a piece. […]”
      • The music, of course, for all of its determined frivolity, is wonderfully eloquent, and composers as diverse as Webern, the great Minimalist, and Mahler, a great “Maximalist,” have come to worship at the shrine.
      • Critics have aptly borrowed those terms to characterize the difference between Mr. Beckett, for example, and his erstwhile master James Joyce, himself a maximalist except in his early works.
   3. 6

      A supporter of an aggressive or expansive foreign policy.

      • But now it is clear that there is no common language with the maximalists directed by Syria, and Mr. Arafat has decided to decide.
   4. 7

      A proponent of Biblical maximalism, one who affirms the historicity of central Biblical…

      A proponent of Biblical maximalism, one who affirms the historicity of central Biblical narratives.

      • The first is reported to represent the secretariat's attempted compromise between the “maximalists” and those who see the further aggrandizement of the cult of Mary as a further obstacle to a dialogue with the Protestants.
      • The Non-Fundamentalist Maximalists extrapolated from every single archaeological discovery an argument in favor of the authenticity of larger and larger parts of the Bible and used some of the critical Bible study information.
   5. 8

      A Bolshevik.

      • Mr. Bernstein, who spent three months in Petrograd after the Revolution and had seen the Maximalists at work, said their aim was to bring about utter destruction not only of the freedom of the Jews, but also the freedom of all Russia.
   6. 9

      A member of a radical wing split from the Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party in 1906.

   7. 10

      A member of a radical Marxist party in Italy.

      • “Maximalists,” as radical Marxists are called here, and anarchists have always had great influence in Italy's trade‐union movement.
   8. 11

      Alternative letter-case form of maximalist.

The neighborhood

• antonymminimalist
• neighbormaximalism
• neighbormaximist