Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One who advocates extremist views or radical action to secure a social or political goal.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective art Preferring redundancy; tending to do or provide more rather than less
  • noun A person with maximalist beliefs or tendencies; someone who prefers redundancy or excess

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Russian maksimalist, name applied in 1906 to an extreme splinter group of the Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party, ultimately from Latin maximum, maximum; see maximum.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From maximal +‎ -ist, by analogy with minimalist

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Examples

  • Jessica Antola Designer Jonathan Adler's "maximalist" approach to design is apparent upon entering the approximately 2,500-square-foot New York duplex he shares with his husband, Barney's New York creative director, Simon Doonan.

    Jonathan Adler's Whimsical Duplex 2010

  • As the Bang on a Can All-Stars 'all-Reich program Thursday at Strathmore amply demonstrated, the composer's musical means may be minimal -- layering simple lines of rhythm, shifting a repeated fragment of melody out of phase with itself, varying the color of a relentlessly hammered chord by spotlighting individual instruments -- but the resulting textures bubble and scintillate with an engagingly "maximalist" energy.

    Music review of Bang on a Can All-Stars at Strathmore Hall Post 2010

  • In general, though, I follow the "maximalist" approach of trying out a bunch of things all at once and seeing what works the best.

    Chris Guillebeau: How to Conduct Your Own Business Audit 2010

  • In general, though, I follow the "maximalist" approach of trying out a bunch of things all at once and seeing what works the best.

    Chris Guillebeau: How to Conduct Your Own Business Audit 2010

  • It will also force Kurdish leaders to re-evaluate their insistence on "maximalist" demands that threatened to unravel Iraq.

    Iraq's Remarkable Election 2009

  • Squashed uneasily between Russia and the smug democracies of Western Europe, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary all want to join NATO. One school of thought in the administration, led by Lynn Davis, under secretary of state for international-security affairs, pressed what one European diplomat calls a "maximalist" approach.

    'Don't Gloat' Wins The Day 2008

  • That kind of "maximalist" strategy is unrealistic because many law schools simply do not have the resources to create new classes, programs, and research centers.

    Insular Law Schools 2006

  • I would agree, however, that most people that come to mind when I use the word "maximalist" would definately think Dever is himself a minimalist.

    Is There a "Biblical Archaeology"? Some Comments Christopher O'Brien 2006

  • You seem to be using "maximalist" to refer to the position that the Bible is all true and that any criticism of the historicity of the bible makes one a minimalist.

    Is There a "Biblical Archaeology"? Some Comments Christopher O'Brien 2006

  • In considering William Wordsworth's sonnet "Composed upon Westminster Bridge" and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the essay investigates the virtues and vices of ambience, as opposed to a more Burkean, "maximalist" view of the natural world.

    Abstracts 2001

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