passivist
(ˈpæsɪvɪst)
[f. passive a. and n. + -ist.]
One who or that which is characterized by passivity, spec. (a) a (male) person who abnormally accepts or desires a passive sexual role (see passivism); (b) an opponent of active participation in war. Also attrib. or as adj.
| 1895 [see masochist]. 1942 Partridge Usage & Abusage (1947) 222/2 There is, in cultured usage, a tendency to make pacifist an active, passivist an inactive, indeed a negatively passive, opponent of war. 1945 K. R. Popper Open Society II. xxiii. 201 It continues on the lines of Kant's criticism of what we may term the ‘passivist’ theory of knowledge. 1955 Bull. Atomic Sci. Sept. 265/3 But if armaments are not acceptable to the pacifist, does this mean that he will submit to the aggressor and meekly resign himself to what he considers evil? The answer is emphatically no. This is to confuse pacifism with appeasement. The pacifist is definitely not a passivist. 1957 P. Worsley Trumpet shall Sound 236 The basic division,..is not between millenarian and non⁓millenarian movements but between activist and passivist movements. 1961 Brit. Med. Dict. 1060/1 Passivist, anyone who is the subject of passivism. |