Nietzschean

comparative more Nietzschean · superlative most Nietzschean · alternative Nietzschen

1. Of, pertaining to or characteristic of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), German philosopher, or his writings.

   He could never cross it and explain to them his position,—the Nietzschean position, in regard to socialism.

   1908 September – 1909 September, Jack London, Martin Eden, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, published September 1909, →OCLC

   5 more examples

   Rejected by the middle class, which he loathed, he had shot up at once into the highest circles by his wit, his dustmanship (which he carried like a banner), and his Nietzschean transcendence of good and evil.

   1912 (date written), [George] Bernard Shaw, “Pygmalion. Sequel: What Happened Afterwards.”, in Androcles and the Lion, Overruled, Pygmalion, London: Constable and Company, published 1916, →OCLC, page 196

   There are the Nietzschean Bootstrap-lifters, who lift themselves to the Superman, and the art-for-art's-sake, neo-Pagan Bootstrap-lifters, who lift themselves down to the Ape.

   1917, Upton Sinclair, The Profits of Religion […]

   A half-burned cigar rolled between his mobile lips, he sat on the back of his neck, and yet he had an air Napoleonic; Nietzschean, it might better be said—although it is safe to assert that these moulders of American institutions knew little about that terrible philosopher who had raised his voice against the “slave morals of Christianity.”

   1917, Winston Churchill, The Dwelling-Place of Light, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, page 341

   The Germanic Tribes had told the whole world in all possible tones carrying conviction, the gently persuasive, the coldly logical; in tones Hegelian, Nietzschean, warlike, pious, cynical, inspired, what they were going to do to the inferior races of the earth, so full of sin and all unworthiness.

   1921, Joseph Conrad, “The Crime of Partition”, in Notes on Life & Letters, London: J. M. Dent & Sons, pages 165–166

   Yet they did not preach a racial war on the Jewish foundations of Christianity, nor propose to saddle a Nietzschean morality on peaceful lands like Austria, Bavaria, and the Rhineland that were traditionally Catholic.

   1952 May, George Santayana, “I Like to Be a Stranger”, in The Atlantic Monthly, Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic Monthly Group, →ISSN, →OCLC

plural Nietzscheans · alternative Nietzschen

1. A supporter of the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche.

   […] because of her arrogant consciousness that she had never seen a girl as beautiful as herself, Gloria had developed into a consistent, practising Nietzschean. This, of course, with overtones of profound sentiment.

   1922, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, book 2