Hylozoism

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A philosophical doctrine espousing that all or some material things possess life, or that all life is inseparable from matter. countable, uncountable

    "[…] is it not melancholy to hear a man like Steffens somniloquise in such a mystifying cant of Hylozoism, of Pickism, a hodge-podge of the grossest materialism, and the most fantastic yet maudlin moonery?"

Example

More examples

"[…] is it not melancholy to hear a man like Steffens somniloquise in such a mystifying cant of Hylozoism, of Pickism, a hodge-podge of the grossest materialism, and the most fantastic yet maudlin moonery?"

Etymology

From hylo- + Ancient Greek ζωή (zōḗ, “life”) + -ism.

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