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machiavellian

/ˌmɑk.i.əˈvɛl.i.ən/adjective

machiavellian is an adjective meaning “Alternative form of Machiavellian” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled M-A-C-H-I-A-V-E-L-L-I-A-N and has 6 syllables, and it appears about once in every 3 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does machiavellian mean?

adjective

  1. 1

    Alternative form of Machiavellian.

adjective

as Machiavellian
  1. 1

    Attempting to achieve goals by cunning, scheming, and unscrupulous methods, especially in politics.

    Iago is the Machiavellian antagonist in William Shakespeare's play Othello.

  2. 2

    Related to the philosophical system of Niccolò Machiavelli.

noun

as Machiavellian
  1. 1

    An unscrupulous schemer.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce machiavellian?

  • UK /ˌmæk.i.əˈvɛl.i.ən/
  • UK /ˌmæk.jəˈvɛl.i.ən/
  • US /ˌmɑk.i.əˈvɛl.i.ən/

Machiavellian has 6 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-Machiavellian.ogg, En-us-Machiavellian-2.ogg, En-au-Machiavellian.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of machiavellian

  • more machiavellian comparative
  • most machiavellian superlative

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is machiavellian?

Machiavellian appears about once in every 3 million words in written English, the 51,738th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Machiavellian in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchmachiavélique (attempting to achieve goals by cunning…), machiavélien (related to the philosophical system of Niccolò…)
Germanmachiavellistisch (attempting to achieve goals by cunning…)
Portuguesemaquiavélico (attempting to achieve goals by cunning…), maquiaveliano (related to the philosophical system of Niccolò…)
Spanishmaquiavélico (attempting to achieve goals by cunning…)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does machiavellian come from?

From Machiavelli + -an, from the name of the Italian statesman and writer Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527), whose work The Prince (1532) advises that acquiring and exercising power may require unethical methods.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).