nominalistn.adj.
/ˈnɒmᵻnl̩ɪst/, /ˈnɒmᵻnəlɪst/, U.S. /ˈnɑmənl̩əst/, /ˈnɑmənələst/ A. n.
Philosophy. A person who holds the view that things denominated by the same term share nothing except that fact. Cf. nominalism n. 1. Cf. realist n. 1.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > scholasticism > [noun] > nominalism > adherent of
nominal1519
nominalist1622
terminist1652
non-realist1909
1622 E. Chaloner Sixe Serm. 126 To be a Nominalist or to be a Realist are held matters of great importance amongst some.
1654 Bp. J. Taylor Real Presence 89 This was the sense of Ocham the Father of the Nominalists.
a1695 A. Wood Hist. & Antiq. Univ. Oxf. anno 1340 (1792) I. i. 437 The faction now of the Nominalists and Realists being very rife and frequent in the University.
a1751 H. Bolingbroke Ess. iv. xli, in Wks. (1754) IV. 624 The dispute..between the nominalists and realists about the nature of universals.
1816 S. T. Coleridge Statesman's Man. App. p. xxxi Laodiceans in spirit, Minims in faith, and nominalists in philosophy.
1843 J. S. Mill Syst. Logic I. i. vi. §1 The doctrine of the extreme nominalists that it is an expression of an agreement or disagreement between the meanings of two names.
1880 A. H. Huth Life & Writings H. T. Buckle I. ii. 123 Horne Tooke was a nominalist and sensationalist.
1910 Encycl. Brit. I. 439/1 In philosophy he was a nominalist.
1978 Lit. & Theol. 2 132 Berkeley is not a simple nominalist, but rather overcomes the entire realist-nominalist problematic by denying that nouns and nominal functions stand for discrete sensory particulars.
2001 Book July–Aug. 69/1 The medieval nominalists who argued that philosophy was just another set of random words.
B. adj.
Originally and chiefly Philosophy. Of, relating to, or characterized by nominalism (cf. nominalistic adj.). Also (in extended use): (of research, problem-solving, etc.) that is concerned simply with terminology and not with the essence of things.
ΚΠ
1839 H. Hallam Introd. Lit. Europe III. iii. 312 Hartley also resembles Hobbes in the extreme to which he has pushed the nominalist theory.
1885 M. Pattison Mem. 170 I had not yet abandoned my nominalist foundations.
1899 Philos. Rev. 8 170 The nominalist view that the true meaning of an abstract or generic belief consists not in the vague or fragmentary concrete image that occupies the mind, but in the mental action.
1938 G. Reavey tr. N. A. Berdyaev Solitude & Society 33 Personalist philosophy, as I understand it, has nothing in common with the subjectivist, individualist, empirical or nominalist currents of to-day.
1965 Listener 9 Dec. 942/1 How much more nominalist, in a way, the whole society is.
2001 Brit. Jrnl. Hist. Sci. 34 20 Richardson's solution was simple, apparently nominalist and well to the point.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2003; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.adj.1622