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essentialism

noun/ɪˈsɛnʃ(ə)lɪz(ə)m/

C2CEFR level
80/100Rarity: very rare
TechnicalRegister

The view that things possess a fixed set of properties defining what they necessarily are.

Feminist critics rejected the essentialism that assigned women an unchanging inner nature.

Topic: Philosophy & ideas in General English

Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.

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More general words: Philosophy & ideas