secessionist
Americannoun
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of secessionist
Explanation
A secessionist is someone who wants to break away from a larger group. People who make plans to split from their government and form a new country are secessionists. Secessionist comes from secede, "formally withdraw from," and its Latin roots, which mean "go apart." A secessionist wants to make a break, almost always from their country. The Civil War was a fight between the Union and a coalition of 11 secessionist states that supported slavery. These states split off from the rest of the country after Abraham Lincoln was elected on an anti-slavery platform.
Vocabulary lists containing secessionist
Unit 1: Telling Details
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Vocabulary from Readings 2, Unit 1
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Lincoln's Spymaster
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The restaurant takes its name from Koloman Moser, a Secessionist artist.
From New York Times • Apr. 26, 2022
Secessionist parties won a regional election in December, but they have failed to agree on how the region should be ruled.
From Washington Post • Feb. 23, 2018
Secessionist rhetoric revealed a variety of motives and ambitions.
From Textbooks • Jan. 18, 2018
Here in Vegas, a city he bizarrely considers to be like Vienna during the Secessionist period, he’s in his element being out of this element.
From The Guardian • Jan. 23, 2016
But the Secessionist leaders had such confidence in Maj.
From The Struggle for Missouri by McElroy, John
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
