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nationalist

noun · adjective

Simple meaning

A member of the South African National Party during the 20th century.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

nashuhnuhluhst

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈnæʃənələst

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. An advocate of national independence of or a strong national government

  2. An advocate of nationalism.

  3. south africa

    A member of the South African National Party during the 20th century.

adjective

  1. Of or relating to nationalism.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: An advocate of national independence of or a strong national government

Used this way, nationalist is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in government or politics contexts.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Where it naturally appears

  • Government/politics

Nearby words

  • national , used mainly in Regional English

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Advocate

nationalist government

South

arab nationalist

Relating

irish nationalistindian nationalist

Other combinations

nationalist leadernationalist movementnationalist partynationalist politics

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • nationalitynounDerived noun · specialist

    People having common origins or traditions and often comprising a nation.

  • nationalismnounDerived noun

    Love of country and willingness to sacrifice for it.

  • nationallyadverbDerived adverb

    With regard to a nation taken as a whole.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • nationalist chinanounCompound term

    A government on the island of Taiwan established in 1949 by Chiang Kai-shek after the conquest of mainland China by the Communists led by Mao Zedong.

  • nationalist leadernounCompound term

    The leader of a nationalist movement.

Related Words

Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: of or relating to nationalism

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.