The Government took up the word, and used nihilism to stigmatize all revolutionary, and ultra democratic and socialistic tendencies; and we have seen it play its part in the recent investigations into the attempted assassination of the Emperor.
1867, Eugene Schuyler, “Preface”, in Ivan Sergheïevitch Turgenef [i.e., Ivan Turgenev], translated by Eugene Schuyler, Fathers and Sons […], New York, N.Y.: Leypoldt and Holt, page vii