Manifest Destiny
Etymology
Coined by the journalist John L. O’Sullivan in 1845, who wrote of the nation’s “manifest destiny to overspread the continent.” “Manifest” (from Latin “manifestus,” “clear, evident”) plus “destiny” framed expansion as both obvious and preordained. The phrase lent a moral gloss to territorial conquest and the displacement of Native peoples.
noun phrase · /MAN-ih-fest DES-tih-nee/
The 19th-century belief that the United States was fated and divinely entitled to expand across North America.
What it names
The way an expanding power can dress conquest as destiny — a self-justifying story worth recognizing wherever it recurs.
Example
The painting of settlers marching west is practically an advertisement for Manifest Destiny.
Related idea
It relates to imperialism but was distinct: a specifically American, continental, and providential justification for expansion rather than a general theory of empire.