nihilator

English

Etymology

From nihilate +‎ -or.

Noun

nihilator (plural nihilators)

1. (philosophy) That which nihilates.
   • 1980, Darshana International‎, volumes 20-21, J. P. Atreya, page 80:

     Being alone can nihilate without itself being nihilated. In the act of nihilation the nihilator remains.

   • 1988, Joseph C. McLelland, Prometheus Rebound: The Irony of Atheism, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, →ISBN, page 267:

     Every ego is engaged in “a desperate effort to be” - desperate because we are all nihilators defending our fragile project of being, which necessarily involves mutual destruction: […]

   • 1994, John Passmore, A Hundred Years of Philosophy‎, Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 606:

     […] French Resistance left him with a feeling of human solidarity quite absent from his earlier works, in which other people are most characteristically represented as Heidegger’s ‘They’ -- obstacles to our discovery of ourselves, nihilators of our possibilities.

Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ni.(ɦ)ɪˈɫaː.tɔr]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ni.kiˈlaː.tor]

Verb

nihilātor

1. second/third-person singular future passive imperative of nihilō