hylozoism

Etymology

From hylo- (“wood, matter”) + Ancient Greek ζωή (zōḗ, “life”) + -ism.

Why this word is great

HYLOZOISM — [Noun] The belief that all physical matter possesses life or a life-like quality. From hylo- ("matter, wood") + Ancient Greek ζωή (zōḗ, "life") + -ism ("doctrine, belief"). Unlike "panpsychism" (which ascribes consciousness to atoms and stones) or "materialism" (which reduces life to mechanistic interactions), hylozoism insists that life is not superimposed but inherent—a pulse already present in the grain. It is the way a river seems to choose its path, the way fire hungers and spreads, the way a weathered stone wears its scars like memories. The world, in this view, is not a machine but a sleeping beast.

noun

The belief that all physical matter is alive in some sense.“Hylozoism... makes all Body, as such, and therefore every smallest Atom of it, to have Life Essentially belonging to it.”
Synonym of materialism, the belief that all life derives entirely from physical matter.“[…] is it not melancholy to hear a man like Steffens somniloquise in such a mystifying cant of Hylozoism, of Pickism, a hodge-podge of the grossest materialism, and the most fantastic yet maudlin moonery?”