The absence of social norms, regulations or laws. Not to be confused with anarchism, anomie is an existentialism condition rather than a specific state of affairs. Anomie can arise even within a very well regulated society if those norms, regulations or laws lose their legitimacy and arenât replaced by an alternative vision of how things should be. Derived from the Greek word ânomosâ, meaning law, the term was first used by French philosopher Jean-Marie Guyau, but its most well-known formulation is that of French sociologist Durkheim, Ămile, who used it in his book Suicide (1897) to describe a situation in which social changes---particularly those relating to employment prospects---bring about a situation in which people begin to feel hopeless and without a future because of the discrepancy between public discourse (what the government proclaims to be true) and the evidence on the ground, which belies that rhetoric.