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Hobbes

American

[hobz] / hɒbz /

noun

Thomas, 1588–1679, English philosopher and author.

Hobbes British

/ hɒbz /

noun

Thomas. 1588–1679, English political philosopher. His greatest work is the Leviathan (1651), which contains his defence of absolute sovereignty

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

Hobbesian noun

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

On a campus where expectations outpace reality, the 75 minutes Mr. Mansfield devoted to Machiavelli or Hobbes felt special.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 30, 2026

He quotes the philosopher Thomas Hobbes that our lives have been “nasty, brutish and short.”

From Slate • Jul. 28, 2025

And this book has been compared to “Catcher in the Rye,” “A Prayer for Owen Meany,” Calvin and Hobbes.

From Salon • May 22, 2024

And it may be that Thomas Hobbes, history’s cheery optimist, was right: “The condition of man is a condition of war of every one against every one.”

From Seattle Times • Mar. 29, 2024

Thomas Hobbes, writing in 1655, thought that there was no astronomy worth the name before Copernicus, no physics before Galileo, no physiology before William Harvey.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023