Anomie

//ˈæn.ə.mi// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Alienation or social instability caused by erosion of standards and values. countable, uncountable

    "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."

  2. 2
    lack of moral standards in a society wordnet
  3. 3
    personal state of isolation and anxiety resulting from a lack of social control and regulation wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
anarchyanomydisorderillicit businesslawlessnessoutlawry

Example

More examples

"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."

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).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.