Maxim Definition

măksĭm
maxims
noun
maxims
A concisely expressed principle or rule of conduct, or a statement of a general truth.
Webster's New World
A key principle of law that has been repeated so often it has become a commonplace expression.
Webster's New World Law
An early, single-barreled, automatic machine gun.
Webster's New World
Synonyms:
pronoun
The Maxim gun, a British machine gun of various calibres used by the British army from 1889 until World War I.
Wiktionary

Other Word Forms of Maxim

Noun

Singular:
maxim
Plural:
maxims

Origin of Maxim

  • From Anglo-Norman maxime and Middle French maxime, from Late Latin maxima (“axiom"), noun use of the feminine singular form of Latin maximus (apparently as used in the phrase propositio maxima "greatest premise").

    From Wiktionary

  • Middle English maxime from Old French from Medieval Latin maxima from maxima (prōpositiō) greatest (premise) feminine of Latin maximus greatest meg- in Indo-European roots

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

  • After the inventor Sir Hiram Maxim (1840-1916).

    From Wiktionary

Maxim Sentence Examples

  • Maxim, like Langley, employed a staff of highly skilled workmen.

  • This last was the collection first known and chiefly used in the West during the middle ages; and of its 134 only 97 have been written on by the glossatores or medieval commentators; these therefore alone have been received as binding in those countries which recognize and obey the Roman law, - according to the maxim Quicquid non agnoscit glossa, nec agnoscit curia.

  • They turned the maxim that "there is no peace beyond the line" against its inventors.

  • The Royalist cavalry was disorganized by victory as often as by defeat, and illustrated on numerous fields the now discredited maxim that cavalry cannot charge twice in one day.

  • What can come nearer Hume's celebrated maxim - "Anything may be the cause of anything else," than Butler's conclusion, "so that any one thing whatever may, for aught we know to the contrary, be a necessary condition to any other."

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Words Starting With

MMAMAX

Words Ending With

MIMXIM

Unscrambles

maxim

Words Starting With M and Ending With M

Starts With M & Ends With MStarts With MA & Ends With MStarts With M & Ends With IM

Word Length

5 Letter Words5 Letter Words Starting With M5 Letter Words Ending With M