manifest destiny
noun
often capitalized M&D
: a future event accepted as inevitable
in the mid-19th century expansion to the Pacific was regarded as the Manifest Destiny of the United States
broadly : an ostensibly benevolent or necessary policy of imperialistic expansion
Example Sentences
They were living in a time when expansion to the Pacific was regarded by many people as the Manifest Destiny of the United States.
Recent Examples on the Web His Times Square restaurant, Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar, can feel in hindsight like an exercise in overextension, an assumption of manifest destiny powered by swagger and a signature Donkey Sauce. 
New York Times, 23 May 2022 Parts of Rita’s own manifest destiny are bound to rub certain people the wrong way, particularly some of Nicolò’s family. James Mcauley, Town & Country, 27 Apr. 2022 This was white supremacy and manifest destiny in action. Nick Martin, The New Republic, 1 Nov. 2021 Benton, along with many others, used the notion of manifest destiny to systematically displace and kill scores of Native Americans. Washington Post, 11 Oct. 2021 Fox has long reinterpreted manifest destiny as a media product, treating the American mind as a vacant space upon which any dream, or any delusion, might be constructed. Megan Garber, The Atlantic, 12 July 2021 The natural environment with which Native Americans had established a harmonious and symbiotic relationship, was similarly despoiled by the twin logic of expropriation and colonization that spread under the logic of manifest destiny. Nicholas Dirks, Scientific American, 10 Aug. 2021 Now, manifest destiny has become a manifest emergency. CBS News, 18 July 2021 So what have Democrats gotten in exchange for embracing this manifest destiny nationalism? Kate Aronoff, The New Republic, 10 June 2021 See More
New York Times, 23 May 2022 Parts of Rita’s own manifest destiny are bound to rub certain people the wrong way, particularly some of Nicolò’s family. James Mcauley, Town & Country, 27 Apr. 2022 This was white supremacy and manifest destiny in action. Nick Martin, The New Republic, 1 Nov. 2021 Benton, along with many others, used the notion of manifest destiny to systematically displace and kill scores of Native Americans. Washington Post, 11 Oct. 2021 Fox has long reinterpreted manifest destiny as a media product, treating the American mind as a vacant space upon which any dream, or any delusion, might be constructed. Megan Garber, The Atlantic, 12 July 2021 The natural environment with which Native Americans had established a harmonious and symbiotic relationship, was similarly despoiled by the twin logic of expropriation and colonization that spread under the logic of manifest destiny. Nicholas Dirks, Scientific American, 10 Aug. 2021 Now, manifest destiny has become a manifest emergency. CBS News, 18 July 2021 So what have Democrats gotten in exchange for embracing this manifest destiny nationalism? Kate Aronoff, The New Republic, 10 June 2021 See More Word History
First Known Use
1845, in the meaning defined above