revanchist

1 of 2

adjective

re·vanch·ist rə-ˈväⁿ-shist

: of or relating to a policy designed to recover lost territory or status : of or relating to a revanche

Each of Hitler's allies had their own, partially interrelated, expansionary or revanchist motives for attacking the Soviet Union.

Michael Burleigh

Wilson brought with him a sheaf of high principles—democracy, self-determination, world government—that bore little relevance to the tangled politics and even more tangled geography of postwar Europe. His idealism was soon drowned out by the revanchist passions of his allies.

Kenneth Auchincloss

also : advocating or fighting for the recovery of lost territory or status

While revanchist emperors, such as Julian, were still mouthing the aristocratic ideology of imperialist aggression, more realistic rulers, like Constantius II, recognized that the future lay in accommodation with the so-called barbarians who had already infiltrated the heights of army and administration.

C. R. Whittaker

revanchist

2 of 2

noun

rə-ˈväⁿ-shist

plural revanchists

: one who advocates or fights for the recovery of lost territory or status : one who advocates a policy of revanche

In eastern and South-Eastern Europe today, one man's courageous defender of national self-determination is another's nostalgic revanchist.

Tony Judt

Later in 2007, Pelosi plans to rewrite the laws on pork-barrel spending. She promises that the overall effect of her reforms will be "to break the link between lobbyists and legislation" in Washington. Who will win the coming battle between reformers and revanchists?

Massimo Calabresi

Example Sentences

Recent Examples on the Web

Adjective

Preoccupations like these have fuelled a revanchist current in education, which has taken many forms.

Jay Caspian Kang, The New Yorker, 28 Oct. 2022 Kristi Raik, director of the International Center for Defense and Security’s Estonian Foreign Policy Institute, said Western policy toward Russia since 2007 ignored clear signs of Russia’s revanchist imperialism and autocratic path.

Robyn Dixon, Washington Post, 12 Oct. 2022 The opposition figure’s few comments on the Ukrainian region came in the swirl surrounding Russia’s initial 2014 invasion, when Putin first launched his revanchist project in Ukraine.

Casey Michel, The New Republic, 4 Oct. 2022 Instead, Putin is on his own revanchist journey of restoring Russia’s empire.

Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 4 Oct. 2022 As for French cinema, Daney writes incisively about the revanchist politics of nineteen-seventies France and the resulting decadence of French cinema.

Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 8 Sep. 2022 Both Lyachynskyy and Yermolenko observed that Russia, from the czars through the Soviet Union to the revanchist reign of Vladimir Putin, has always ruled its vast empire of nations from an authoritarian center, with power strictly vertical.

George Packer, The Atlantic, 6 Sep. 2022 His political failures helped usher in a revanchist, right-wing surge that still saturates Russia, and that threatens nuclear warfare once more.

Casey Michel, The New Republic, 31 Aug. 2022 Since the August day 31 years ago when a group of leaders in the nearby parliament shocked the nation by declaring independence from the collapsing Soviet Union, the country has periodically fought to keep itself apart from a revanchist Russia.

Serhiy Morgunov, Washington Post, 24 Aug. 2022

Noun

It is invaded by a revanchist Russia, led by a former KGB colonel.

Jay Nordlinger, National Review, 14 Sep. 2022 The revanchist canon this produces can be reactionary in its own way.

Casey Cep, The New Yorker, 25 July 2022 Putin also openly stated his revanchist, imperialist goals, declaring that Ukraine was not a real country and making the ahistorical suggestion that it should be subsumed back into mother Russia.

Alexander Smith, NBC News, 29 June 2022 President Vladimir Putin compared himself to Peter the Great, the emperor who led Russia’s 18th-century territorial expansion, in a speech that underscored his revanchist ambitions.

María Luisa Paúl, Washington Post, 10 June 2022 Alarmed by the danger posed by a revanchist Russia, Finland is now ready to join the Atlantic Alliance.

The Editors, National Review, 13 May 2022 On March 2, the Monitor described how the invasion is dividing Europe between NATO on one side and a revanchist Moscow on the other.

Melissa Mohr, The Christian Science Monitor, 28 Mar. 2022 The treaty led to an embittered and revanchist Germany and dissatisfied victors in Italy and Japan.

Dan Mclaughlin, National Review, 16 Mar. 2022 Liberal democracy now faces a fearsome challenge, not just from a revanchist Russia but from a rising, authoritarian super power in China.

Stephen Collinson, CNN, 24 Feb. 2022 See More

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'revanchist.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.