protestant
UK /ˈpɹɒtɪstənt/ · US /ˈpɹɑtɪstənt/ adjective, noun
Forms protestants
- adjective Protesting.
- noun (chiefly law) One who protests; a protester.
- noun (Christianity) A member of any of several Christian denominations which separated from the Roman Catholic Church based on theological or political differences during the Reformation (or in some cases later).
- noun (historical) A member of the Church of England or Church of Ireland, as distinct from Protestant nonconformists or dissenters.
- adjective (Christianity) Of or pertaining to several denominations of Christianity that separated from the Roman Catholic Church based on theological or political differences during the Reformation.
Synonyms
Etymology
See Protestant. The legal sense either has the same source or is simply protest + -ant.
Borrowed from either German Protestant or French protestant, one likely reinforced by the other; equivalent to protest + -ant.
Webster’s 1913
- noun One who protests; --originally applied to those who adhered to Luther, and protested against, or made a solemn declaration of dissent from, a decree of the Emperor Charles V. and the Diet of Spires, in 1529, against the Reformers, and appealed to a general council; --now used in a popular sense to designate any Christian who does not belong to the Roman Catholic or the Greek Church.
- adjective Making a protest; protesting.
- adjective Of or pertaining to the faith and practice of those Christians who reject the authority of the Roman Catholic Church; as, Protestant writers.
Etymology [F. protestant, fr. L. protestans, -antis, p. pr. of protestare. See Protest, v.]
Etymology [Cf. F. protestant.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “protestant”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details