conspiracist
Americannoun
Usage
What does conspiracist mean? A conspiracist is someone who creates, promotes, or believes in a conspiracy theory—an explanation of an event that claims it was the result of a secret and often complex and evil plot by multiple people. Conspiracy theories and the conspiracists who promote or formulate them often reject the standard or accepted explanation of unexplained or unusual events and claim that they are the doing of evil conspirators secretly conspiring behind the scenes. Conspiracy most commonly means a secret plan by multiple people to do something evil or illegal. Conspiracy can also refer to the act of making such plans—the act of conspiring—or to the group making the plans. The people involved can be called conspirators. In conspiracy theory, the word theory is used in a general way to refer to a proposed explanation that has not been proven. But conspiracists don’t usually treat such theories as just guesses—they often promote them as fact, no matter how bizarre or far-fetched they may be. Most conspiracy theories involve supposedly secret knowledge of the supposedly secret and evil dealings of powerful people, especially politicians, government officials, billionaires, and celebrities. Such plots are often claimed to have the goal of controlling world events and ordinary people. A close synonym of conspiracist is conspiracy theorist. A less common synonym is conspiratorialist. Example: Conspiracists don’t care that their theories have been repeatedly debunked—in fact, they take any criticism as proof that they’re right.
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.
Even House Rep. Chip Roy, an otherwise-reliable conspiracist, took to social media to swat down this feel-good hoax.
From Slate • Jul. 7, 2025
A conspiracist who claimed the Manchester Arena bombing attack was staged has been ordered to pay £45,000 in damages.
From BBC • Nov. 8, 2024
I’m not an anti-vaxxer, I’m not a crank conspiracist or anything like that.
From New York Times • Feb. 2, 2024
Using the morbid curiosity scale and the generic conspiracist beliefs scale, we found that the more morbidly curious people were, the higher their general belief in conspiracy theories.
From Scientific American • Oct. 27, 2023
You have some suggestions about how to test this explanation of conspiracist thinking.
From Salon • Oct. 21, 2023
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
