passivistadj.n.
/ˈpasɪvɪst/, U.S. /ˈpæsəvəst/ A. adj.
1. Of, relating to, or characterized by an opposition to war or violence; pacifist. Also: (occasionally) intended for peaceful, non-violent activity.
ΚΠ
1872 N. Amer. Rev. Oct. 407 Thence originated the ‘Cincinnati movement,’ favored by the Liberal Republicans on the one side, and the ‘Passivist’ Democrats on the other.
1933 Man 33 129 That our axe was not altogether a passivist creation is indicated by the spall which has been taken off the cutting edge, a fact which indicates its utilization possibly as a weapon.
1976 Jrnl. Politics 38 28 Alexander Hamilton sourly denounced this passivist republican rhetoric, contending that the causes of war are numerous.
1998 Europe-Asia Stud. 50 493 The implicit assumption that the Soviet leaders were the key aggressors and all the East European leaders the reluctant and passivist allies.
2. Characterized by the habit or practice of being passive, accepting, or non-resistant. Cf. activist adj.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > subjection > obedience > submissiveness > submission > [adjective] > non-resisting
non-resisting1701
non-resistant1796
non-resistance1805
passivist1919
1919 E. Paul & C. Paul tr. T. G. Masaryk et al. Spirit of Russia II. xxiii. 488 The passivist demeanour of the Russian is thoroughly consistent; he blindly accepts the revelation and the practice of the church.
1957 K. R. Popper Poverty of Historicism iii. 60 The anti-interventionist or ‘passivist’ view: the view that if we are dissatisfied with existing social or economic conditions, it is because we do not understand..why active intervention would only make matters worse.
1973 Amer. Hist. Rev. 78 1058/1 Antinomian theology was closer to the internalized, Spirit-centered, and passivist kind of millenarianism that was to become so characteristic of the Quakers.
1989 Los Angeles Times (Nexis) 8 Mar. vi. 1/4 Better viewers be activist than passivist. Better we view critically than apathetically.
3. Philosophy. Denoting or relating to the theory of the passive acquisition of knowledge through the senses.
ΚΠ
1920 Jrnl. Philos., Psychol. & Sci. Methods 17 460 The Kantian epistemology merely took over and tinkered the ‘atomistic’ psychology of Hume and his passivist conception of experience.
1973 Sci. Stud. 3 225 The epistemology adopted is passivist. Following the British empiricist tradition, the knowing organism is merely a ‘blank slate’ written upon by experience.
1990 V. Kuicand & R. J. Thompson tr. Y. R. Simon Introd. Metaphysics Knowl. ii. 40 It was from Thomism that Descartes borrowed his own passivist conception of our cognitions.
B. n.
1.
a. A person who is passive, esp. one who allows things to happen without taking active measures to resist or alter them. Also: a person who observes without participating.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > subjection > obedience > submissiveness > submission > [noun] > non-resistance > one who practises
non-resistant1850
non-resister1851
passivist1892
1892 Temple Bar June 117 Men of every occupation, and of none, have joined the little company of passivists; they wander wherever work may take them.
1945 Sociometry 8 119 The difficulty of the purely-at-a-distance investigator, of the passivist,..is that he and his subjects are never in the situation.
1992 Washington Times (Nexis) 6 Feb. m4 Buchanan was one of the great ‘passivists’ of his time: He helplessly let South Carolina and other Dixie states secede shortly before the Civil War.
2003 Indianapolis Star (Nexis) 3 Feb. 2 e Passivists are those who sit on their hands and simply bemoan the state of affairs as they are and go with the flow.
b. Psychology. A man who takes a passive sexual role; esp. a male masochist. Cf. passivism n. 2.
ΘΚΠ
the world > physical sensation > sexual relations > types of sexual behaviour > [noun] > sexual passivity or submissiveness > person
passivist1895
bottom1982
1895 tr. M. Nordau Degeneration v. i. 538 Masochists or passivists..clothe themselves in a costume which recalls, by colour and cut, feminine apparel.
1932 Brevities (N.Y.) 5 Dec. 10/3 The passivist, a normal person as later disclosures will indicate, was earning no small sums as a headliner in musical comedy.
1961 A. S. MacNalty Brit. Med. Dict. 1060/1 Passivist, anyone who is the subject of passivism.
1997 V. A. Rosario Erotic Imagination iv. 148 The male passivist and the female tyrannist formed a couple, sharing the voluptuousness of the martyr and the executioner.
2. Frequently derogatory. A person who passively resists or opposes war; a pacifist.
ΘΚΠ
society > armed hostility > peace > pacific character or disposition > [noun] > pacifist in principle
peace man1795
antipolemist1817
pacifist1906
pacificist1907
conscientious objector1916
Percy1916
conchie1917
passivist1919
war resister1935
dove1962
1919 Internat. Jrnl. Ethics 29 342 It is to be hoped that the pacifists, i.e., the passivists, who counted on the efficacy of non-resistance in touching the hearts of the predatory and the proud..have learned their lesson.
1942 E. Partridge Usage & Abusage 228/2 There is, in cultured usage, a tendency to make pacifist an active, passivist an inactive, indeed a negatively passive, opponent of war.
2003 News Jrnl. (Wilmington, Delaware) (Nexis) 28 Mar. 16 a One of the criticisms..war passivists present is that we will suffer more terrorist attacks for invading Iraq.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2005; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.n.1872