abolitionist

[ab-uh-lish-uh-nist]

noun

1. (especially prior to the Civil War) a person who advocated or supported the abolition of slavery in the U.S.

2. a person who favors the abolition of any law or practice deemed harmful to society.

   the abolitionists who are opposed to capital punishment.

Other Word Forms

• proabolitionist noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of abolitionist¹

First recorded in 1830–40; abolition + -ist

Example Sentences

Which is why, despite my love of berries for birds and nectar for butterflies, I’m not a total turf abolitionist.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Lincoln was addressing a fractured North, not abolitionists, and he knew that striking too soon at slavery might drive the wavering border states into Confederate arms—a shift that could doom the Union cause.

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“Power concedes nothing without a demand,” she told a crowd gathered in Sproul Plaza on that October Thursday in 1964, quoting abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Radical abolitionist John Brown and his sons hacked five men to death with swords.

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As slavery reached the zenith of its power, abolitionists would destroy the white consensus upon which it depended.

Read more on Salon