English edit

Etymology edit

From destruction +‎ -ist.

Noun edit

destructionist (plural destructionists)

  1. One who delights in destroying that which is valuable, or whose principles and influence tend to destroy existing institutions.
  2. One who believes in the final destruction or complete annihilation of the wicked; an annihilationist, a conditionalist (i.e., a believer in conditional immortality).
    • 1850, Reasoner:
      The Destructionist and Annihilationist heretics have drawn their doctrines very fairly from the language of the Gospels and Epistles

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for destructionist”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)