Expansionism

//ɛkˈspænʃənɪzəm// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The policy, of a nation, of expanding its territory or its economic influence. countable, uncountable

    "European colonialism exported its domestic, counter-revolutionary Inquisition around the world, starting with Portuguese expansionism around 1500 C.E."

  2. 2
    the doctrine of expanding the territory or the economic influence of a country wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
appeasementbalance of powerbannerbrinkmanshipcoexistencecolonialism

Example

More examples

"Vietnam is getting seriously frightened by the expansionism of China."

Etymology

From expansion + -ism.

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