anomie

noun

an·​o·​mie ˈa-nə-mē 

variants or less commonly anomy

: social instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and values

The reforms of a ruined economy, under these conditions, brought about social anomie, desperation and poverty rather than relief and prosperity.

—T. Mastnak

also : personal unrest, alienation, and uncertainty that comes from a lack of purpose or ideals

In the face of these prevailing values, many workers experience a kind of anomie. Their jobs become empty, meaningless, and intrinsically unsatisfying.

—Robert Straus

anomic

ə-ˈnä-mik  -ˈnō- 

adjective

Examples of anomie in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Krasznahorkai eventually found a global cult audience, who recognized his distinct ability to cloak anomie, violence, and resignation, smudged with a kind of gutter comedy, within a labyrinthine syntax. —Walt Hunter, The Atlantic, 9 Oct. 2025

The spare but spectral landscapes recall Julie Taymor’s Shakespearean adaptation Titus as well as the supernal opening that Vilmos Zsigmond photographed for Scarecrow, Jerry Schatzberg’s 1970s exploration of American anomie. —Armond White, National Review, 4 June 2025

This Orwellian hypocrisy is the madness that develops from decades of greed, corruption, moral failure and cultural anomie. —Chicago Tribune, 4 June 2025

This time, after all, Trump ran not merely as an insurgent entertainer—an amorphous vessel for free-floating anomie—but as the scarred veteran of a decade-long ideological war, prosecuted and convicted by his enemies, his purposes hardened and sharpened by a thirst for political payback. —Matthew Karp, Harper's Magazine, 28 Feb. 2025

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from French anomie, borrowed from Greek anomía "lawlessness," from ánomos "lawless, unlawful, without laws" (from a- a- entry 2 + -nomos, adjective derivative of nómos "custom, convention, law," noun derivative of némein "to pasture [animals], rule, direct, distribute, apportion") + -ia -y entry 2 — more at nimble

Note: As a philosophical and sociological term French anomie was introduced by the philosopher Jean-Marie Guyau (1854-88) in Esquisse d'une morale sans obligation ni sanction (Paris, 1885), p. 230: "C'est l'absence de loi fixe, qu'on peut désigner sous le terme d'anomie pour l'opposer à l'autonomie des Kantiens." ("It is the absence of fixed law, which can fall under the term anomie in order to oppose it to the autonomy of the Kantians [followers of Immanuel kant].") The term later became closely associated with the French sociologist Émile durkheim, who used it in De la division du travail social (1893) and Le suicide (1897).

First Known Use

1933, in the meaning defined above

Medical Definition

anomie

noun

an·​o·​mie

variants also anomy

ˈan-ə-mē 

: social instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and values

also : personal unrest, alienation, and anxiety that comes from a lack of purpose or ideals