Dictionary

anomie en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio
• /ˈæn.ə.mi/
• /a.noʊ̯ˈmi/

Etymology

From French anomie, from Ancient Greek ἀνομία (anomía, “lawlessness”), from ἄνομος (ánomos, “lawless”), from ἀ- (a-, “not”) + νόμος (nómos, “law”). Popularized by French sociologist Émile Durkheim (1858–1917).

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) Alienation or social instability caused by erosion of standards and values.
   • In fact, one of the recurrent themes in all Didion’s books, both fiction and nonfiction, is Americans’ penchant for reinventing themselves, their belief in fresh starts and second acts — a faith, on the one hand, that helped settle this country and fueled the American dream, and yet, on the other, has resulted in rootlessness and anomie, the discarding of personal and public history. 2021 December 24, Michiko Kakutani, “Didion’s Prophetic Eye on America”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
   • Stories about technology-driven anomie and lives that had become unmoored from meaningful values were thrilling to readers in the 1980s and 1990s, but to be a character in such stories is a different thing. 2024 July 30, Dan Brooks, “Do you ever get the feeling that we’re living in a postmodern fiction? You’re not alone”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
   • [T]hey duly make the acquaintance of all the dysfunctional, boorish and anomie-stricken super-rich on board, including a hateful elderly Brit couple with the Churchillian names of Winston and Clementine. 2022 May 21, Peter Bradshaw, “Triangle of Sadness review – heavy-handed satire on the super-rich loses its shape”, in The Guardian:
   • No wonder, then, that all of these women are consigned to their lot. What’s the point? From adolescent traumas to adulthood indignities, their anomie has been overdetermined. 2020 March, Jess Bergman, “I’m Not Feeling Good at All”, in The Baffler, number 50:
   • Although the hypotheses on what causes anomie are different and reflect the social conditions of different societies, the concept itself refers to the same idea/phenomenon: a weakening of the guiding power of social norms, a loosened social control. 2020, Freda Adler, The Legacy of Anomie Theory, Routledge, →ISBN:
   • This is in line with sociologist Emile Durkheim's seminal study Suicide (1897 [1997]), which argued that "anomie", or normlessness, could explain variations in suicide rates across countries and time. 2019, Kathryn Edin, Timothy Nelson, Andrew Cherlin, Robert Francis, “The Tenuous Attachments of Working-Class Men”, in Journal of Economic Perspectives:

Forms

Coordinates

lawlessness · anarchy

Deriveds

anomic

Translations (19)

nb anomi (alienation or social instability) · de Anomie (alienation or social instability) · sh anomija (alienation or social instability) · sh alijenacija (alienation or social instability) · id anomi (alienation or social instability) · fr anomie (alienation or social instability) · da anomi (alienation or social instability) · es anomia (alienation or social instability) · fi anomia (alienation or social instability) · pl anomia (alienation or social instability) · tr anomi (alienation or social instability) · nl anomie (alienation or social instability) · cs anomie (alienation or social instability) · pt anomia (alienation or social instability) · id kehilangan pegangan (alienation or social instability) · nn anomi (alienation or social instability) · ru аноми́я (alienation or social instability) · sh otuđenje (alienation or social instability) · nl wetteloosheid (alienation or social instability)

wikipedia: Émile Durkheim