Definitions

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

  • noun The philosophical tenet that objects and classes of objects have essential and not merely accidental characteristics.

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

  • noun philosophy The view that objects have properties that are essential to them.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Be wary of those who ask you to blame your hormones/biology: essentialism is not required here.

    spiral 2007

  • Thus the theoretical rejection of essentialism is matched by an attitudinal embrace of it.

    Feminism's Identity Crisis 1993

  • Thus the theoretical rejection of essentialism is matched by an attitudinal embrace of it.

    Feminism's Identity Crisis 1993

  • Now finally I understand where those nagging thoughts were stemming from - "essentialism" - an entirely false construct when viewing evolution and certainly either an original or assimilated part of the christian meme.

    AvaxHome RSS: 2009

  • WE can make BABIES and YOU CAN’T neener neener uhhh not that that means we’re essentialist because essentialism is bad mkay mumblesomething about socialization. anyway, you CAN’T COME IN, you jealous jealousertons!

    An open letter to cis feminists 2008

  • Pushed to such an extreme degree, and culminating in the profound question that ponders if” the French, in short, will continue to be the French,” essentialism is another name for a temptation to which it is surprising to see such apparently respectable minds succumb: racism.

    The Volokh Conspiracy » Anti-French “Racism” 2004

  • Known as essentialism, this was the idea of an essential maleness or femaleness, and against it all three writers united.

    BREAKFAST WITH SOCRATES ROBERT ROWLAND SMITH 2010

  • Known as essentialism, this was the idea of an essential maleness or femaleness, and against it all three writers united.

    BREAKFAST WITH SOCRATES ROBERT ROWLAND SMITH 2010

  • Under one view, termed essentialism, health care law is a distinctive academic field because the particular attributes of medicine and treatment relationships matter fundamentally, not just incidentally, to how law governs this field.

    Archive 2008-02-01 Mary L. Dudziak 2008

  • "essentialism" - a belief that there's a deeper nature to things that makes them what they are.

    SEEDMAGAZINE.COM montenegro@seedmediagroup.com 2010

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