Dictionary

maximalist en · ADJ

Etymology

From maximal + -ist, by analogy with minimalist.

Meanings

1. Preferring redundancy; tending to do or provide more rather than less.
   • Three elephantine examples of that trend have been in the news of late, and they call into question their underlying maximalist presumption that more is more. 1990 May 27, John Rockwell, “Complete Everything, or Is More Enough?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
   • The biennial also includes a sprawling cityscape by Chris Burden incorporating thousands of model buildings, cranes and automobiles, a maximalist vision where Mr. Ashkin's is minimalist. 1997 April 6, Trip Gabriel, “Trafficking in Toxic Waste and Human Loneliness”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
   • At the moment, for example, while a minimalist aesthetic, or the tail end of one, still manifests itself in a lot of painting and music, we are living in age of maximalist novels—books less concerned with le mot juste than with being full-service entertainment centers. 2005 April 17, Charles McGrath, “The Souped-Up, Knock-Out, Total Fiction Experience”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
   • This, his [Frank Stella's] second Museum of Modern Art retrospective, shows him in his second incarnation, turning his back on Minimalist rationality and opting for a “maximalist,” seemingly free-wheeling Baroque complexity that helped set the stage for New-Expressionism. 1987 December 6, Roberta Smith, “Schnabel and Stella: Art, Myth and Ego”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
   • [Chappell] Roan draws from the mega-pop of the 2010s, from Lady Gaga to Taylor Swift – then laces it with sexually frank asides and lavish doses of camp, and performs it with a maximalist, absurd aesthetic indebted to drag, John Waters and Freddie Mercury. 2024 August 9, Laura Snapes, “It’s a femininomenon! How Chappell Roan slow-burned her way to stardom”, in The Guardian:
   • Such a bustling, maximalist extravaganza is in keeping with the excitable energy of the crowd, who are clearly thrilled to revisit the block-party beats of Cruel Summer and tribal doo-wop of Really Sayin’ Somethin’. 2017 November 14, Graeme Virtue, “Bananarama review – hi-NRG poignancy as pop trio return for first proper tour”, in The Guardian:
   • You might call [Louis] Wain’s ‘mad’ style a version of the outsider mode in its paranoid or maximalist aspect. 2011 July 28, Terry Castle, “Do I like it?”, in London Review of Books, volume 33, number 15, →ISSN:
   • Returning to the sound of her maximalist electro-pop heyday, Gaga explores buried trauma, mental illness and the complexities of fame on this return to form 2020 May 29, Michael Cragg, “Lady Gaga: Chromatica review – Gaga rediscovers the riot on her most personal album”, in The Guardian:
   • Mr. Shadbolt's maximalist, when-in-doubt-be-vivid style capaciously suits “Monday's Warriors,” his novel of the wars between the Maoris and the British in New Zealand in the mid-19th century; […] 1992 May 3, Ivan Doig, “Maps Made by Blind Men”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
   • [Christian] Lacroix's maximalist aesthetic has been at odds with fashion trends in recent years. But fashion is just now beginning to swing back his way, with an emphasis on volume and flounce above sleekness. 2005 January 26, Jess Cartner-Morley, “Ovation for Lacroix as maximalist look makes a comeback”, in The Guardian:
   • Bach's choral music was once often heard in maximalist renditions, undertaken by large ensembles who by sheer vocal and instrumental weight emphasize the majestic side of his compositions. 1998 May 17, Sarah Bryan Miller, “Classical Brief”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
2. Aggressive, expansive.
   • […] Truman would not make available the resources and the manpower to fix the problem. He had a maximalist moment—and a maximalist document—before him. He was not ready to back a maximalist policy. 2014, Stephen Sestanovich, Maximalist: America in the World from Truman to Obama, Vintage Books, →ISBN, page 49:
   • Jo Leinen, 35 years old, a spokesman for the protest coalition, said today that the Soviet-American arms limitation talks in Geneva are a failure, and blamed the Reagan Administration for having taken “a maximalist position” that doomed the negotiations. 1983 October 14, James M. Markham, “West Germans Start Missile Protests”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
   • So Britain seems to have two foreign policies, a maximalist one based on illusions of the imperial past, and a minimalist one based on fears of the domestic future. It is time some-one put them together. 1997 October 22, Roy Denman, “British Foreign Policy: Riding Off in Two Directions at Once”, in International Herald Tribune, →ISSN:
   • Administration diplomats have by now grown used to such maximalist posturing and they doubt that North Korea will go so far as to undermine the nuclear deal. 1995 February 10, “High-Risk Bargaining by North Korea”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
   • White’s detention ratchets up the rising tension between Iran and the US, which under Trump has pursued a maximalist campaign against Tehran that includes pulling out of its nuclear deal with world powers. 2019 January 9, “Iran confirms it has detained US navy veteran Michael White”, in The Guardian:
   • Mr. Schmidt agreed that “both the Russians and the Americans want results,” but he warned that they have a long way to go from “maximalist” starting positions. 1981 November 29, Helmut Schmidt, quotee, “Nuclear Theater”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
   • The Ukrainian government has noted Mr. Putin has never backed away from his maximalist demands, interpreting the goal of “demilitarizing” and “de-Nazifying” Ukraine as halting Western military assistance and installing a pro-Russian government in Kyiv. 2024 February 9, Paul Sonne, Anton Troianovski, “Putin to U.S.: Let’s Make a Deal on Ukraine (on My Terms)”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
3. Relating to religious or Biblical maximalism.
   • Again, the progressive view was that the Mother of Jesus should receive all veneration for holiness, but not the title of mediator between God and man. Much of the Curia supported a “maximalist” cult of the Virgin. 1964 September 17, “Powers of Curia Likely to be Cut”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
   • The case of the Bar Kokhba Revolt is an excellent example of how far the Minimalist and Maximalist interpretations of biblical and even ancient history can be verified. 2009, Richard A. Freund, Digging through the Bible, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, page 329:
4. (historical) Relating to far-left communism.
   • His inclusion in the official delegation to Moscow caused surprise today and was seen as indicative of the Italian Communists' aversion to Maximalist currents in international communism. 1961 October 4, Paul Hofmann, “Communists in West Expected to Back Khrushchev Against Soviet and Chinese Left-Wing Extremists”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

Forms

Antonyms

minimalist

Translations (1)

pl maksymalistyczny (Translations)

maximalist en · NOUN

Etymology

From maximal + -ist, by analogy with minimalist.

Meanings

1. A person with maximalist beliefs or tendencies; someone who prefers redundancy or excess, especially in the arts.
   • Critics have aptly borrowed those terms to characterize the difference between Mr. Beckett, for example, and his erstwhile master James Joyce, himself a maximalist except in his early works. 1986 December 28, John Barth, “A Few Words About Minimalism”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
   • A maximalist, Mr. [Craig] Baldwin is at once a collector and curator of 20th-century visual culture. 2009 January 14, Manohla Dargis, “Star Log: Trippy Sci-Fi Mash-Up Alert!”, in New York Times:
   • Concerning his own purpose in making music, Mr. Babbitt says he would call himself a maximalist: “I try to make music as much as it has ever been or as much as it could be. I may try to put too much into a piece. […]” 1982 October 17, Joan Peyser, “Milton Babbitt's Serialism”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
   • In the 1960's, he [Peter Gourfain] was a Minimalist, using wood beams to build allusive and ephemeral constructions. This show is primarily concerned with the artist since he became a maximalist. 1987 April 3, Michael Brenson, “Works by Gourfain at Brooklyn Museum”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
   • The music, of course, for all of its determined frivolity, is wonderfully eloquent, and composers as diverse as Webern, the great Minimalist, and Mahler, a great “Maximalist,” have come to worship at the shrine. 1986 August 24, Tim Page, “Opera: ‘Die Fledermaus’ Gets a Change of Cast”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
   • David Foster Wallace was a maximalist. His masterpiece, Infinite Jest, is a 1,000-page, polyphonic epic about addiction and obsession in millennial America. 2015 May 25, Chris Power, “A brief survey of the short story: David Foster Wallace”, in the Guardian:
   • Mohawke is known as a musical maximalist, which is a polite way of saying that he lumps prodigiously distorted beats on top of each other, as if playing techno Jenga. 2015 December 11, Ian Gittins, “Hudson Mohawke review – ferocious, apocalyptic electro”, in The Guardian:
2. A supporter of an aggressive or expansive foreign policy.
   • But on the larger issues, the range of opinion on the best solution runs the gamut from the so‐called hawks, or “maximalists,” as they have come to be known, and the doves, or “minimalists.” The first group would have Israel keep most of the Arab territory she now occupies, and would postpone any significant action on the Palestinian claims until after an over‐all peace agreement was reached with the Arab states. 1972 September 17, Terence Smith, “The World”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
   • The policy, however, will collapse unless it produces results. If the region reverts to another stalemate of “no‐peace, no‐war,” the very cause of the October conflagration, then the initiative will pass to the Arab “maximalists,” the Iraqis, the extremist Palestinians, Colonel Qaddafi. 1974 March 31, Edward R. F. Sheehan, “He Likes to Be Liked, and Still Have His Way”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
   • But now it is clear that there is no common language with the maximalists directed by Syria, and Mr. Arafat has decided to decide. 1984 January 4, Amnon Kapeliouk, “Arafat the Diplomat”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
3. A proponent of Biblical maximalism, one who affirms the historicity of central Biblical narratives.
   • The first is reported to represent the secretariat's attempted compromise between the “maximalists” and those who see the further aggrandizement of the cult of Mary as a further obstacle to a dialogue with the Protestants. 1964 September 13, “Pope Paul Will Open Session Of Vatican Council Tomorrow”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
   • The Non-Fundamentalist Maximalists extrapolated from every single archaeological discovery an argument in favor of the authenticity of larger and larger parts of the Bible and used some of the critical Bible study information. 2009, Richard A. Freund, Digging through the Bible, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, page 14:
4. (capitalized, historical, obsolete) A Bolshevik.
   • Mr. Bernstein, who spent three months in Petrograd after the Revolution and had seen the Maximalists at work, said their aim was to bring about utter destruction not only of the freedom of the Jews, but also the freedom of all Russia. 1917 November 19, “Jews Against Bolsheviki”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
   • After a firm opening and an hour of fairly well sustained strength the stock market once more suffered a wide break yesterday following the receipt of the news of the overthrow of Kerensky and the announced intention of the Maximalists to propose an immediate peace with Germany. 1917 November 9, “Russian News Brings About Another Collapse—Evidenceof Banking Support”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
5. (historical) A member of a radical wing split from the Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party in 1906.
6. (historical) A member of a radical Marxist party in Italy.
   • “Maximalists,” as radical Marxists are called here, and anarchists have always had great influence in Italy's trade‐union movement. [1973 June 19, Paul Hofmann, “Italian Communists Are Asking Workers to Restrict Walkouts”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

Forms

Antonyms

minimalist

Relateds

maximist · maximalism

Translations (2)

pl maksymalistka (Translations) · pl maksymalista (Translations)