nihilism
1817, "the doctrine of negation" (in ref. to religion or morals), from Ger. Nihilismus, from L. nihil "nothing at all" (see nil), coined by Ger. philosopher Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743-1819). In philosophy, an extreme form of skepticism (1836). The political sense was first used by Ger. journalist Joseph von Görres (1776-1848). Turgenev used the Rus. form of the word (nigilizm) in "Fathers and Children" (1862) and claimed to have invented it. With a capital N-, it refers to the Rus. revolutionary anarchism of the period 1860-1917, supposedly so called because "nothing" that then existed found favor in their eyes. Nihilist first attested 1836, in the religious or philosophical sense; in the Rus. political sense, it is recorded from 1871.