thanatist

Etymology

From thanato- + -ist.

thanatist means One who believes that the human soul eventually dies; a proponent of thanatism. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.

Why this word is great

THANATIST — [Noun] One who believes that the human soul ceases to exist at death; a proponent of thanatism. From the combining form thanato-, from Ancient Greek θάνατος (thánatos, "death"), and the suffix -ist, denoting an adherent of a doctrine. Unlike a nihilist, whose broad denial of meaning may drift into existential abstraction, or a thanatologist, who clinically studies the social and biological processes of dying, the thanatist holds a specific, terminal creed about consciousness. It is the conviction that the self is a candle snuffed, leaving only cooling wax; the quiet in a room after the record finishes, not with an echo, but with a perfect stop; the acceptance of a sandcastle’s dissolution into the tide as the fulfillment of its nature. They are the cartographers of a country they insist is blank.

noun

One who believes that the human soul eventually dies; a proponent of thanatism.