What does "survivalist" mean?

A person who believes in being prepared to survive and is actively preparing for possible future emergencies and disruptions in local, regional, national, or international social or political order.

What is a synonym for "survivalist"?

Common synonyms include: disasterist, prepper, prepper.

Survivalist

noun

noun ·4 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
A person who believes in being prepared to survive and is actively preparing for possible future emergencies and disruptions in local, regional, national, or international social or political order.
"But why would survivalists flock to Pinterest, a site that was adopted early-on by people who wanted to share design ideas for home goods? In a way, preppers are actually the ideal user for the site."
2
someone who tries to insure their personal survival or the survival of their group or nation wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

disasterist prepper prepper

Example

More examples

"What's the difference between a prepper and a survivalist?"

Etymology

From survival + -ist.

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