1. any cautious, defeatist, or cynical attitude based on the belief that the individual and human institutions exist in a hostile or indifferent universe or society.
2. an oppressive awareness of the futility of trying to improve one's status in life or in society.
1943, a word from Nietzsche, from German ressentiment, from French ressentiment. The French word also was borrowed as obsolete English resentiment (16c.) "feeling or sense (of something); state of being deeply affected by (something); resentment." (dictionary.com)
"Nearly a quarter century after the fall of the empire, Putin has unleashed an ideology of ressentiment. It has been chorussed by those who, in 1991, despaired of the loss not of Communist ideology but of imperial greatness, and who, ever since, have lived with what Russians so often refer to as 'phantom-limb syndrome': the pain of missing Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Baltic states; the pain of diminishment. They want revenge for their humiliation."
- David Remnick, "Watching the eclipse: Ambassador Michael McFaul was there when the promise of democracy came to Russia - and when it began to fade", 11 & 18 August 2014 The New Yorker
