communist

American  

[kom-yuh-nist] / ˈkɒm jə nɪst /

noun

• communists
  plural

1. (initial capital letter) a member of the Communist Party or movement.

2. an advocate of communism.

3. a person who is regarded as supporting politically leftist or subversive causes.

4. (usually initial capital letter) a Communard.

---

adjective

1. (initial capital letter) of or relating to the Communist Party or to Communism.

2. pertaining to communists or communism.

communist British  

/ ˈkɒmjʊnɪst /

noun

1. a supporter of any form of communism

2. (often capital) a supporter of Communism or a Communist movement or state

3. (often capital) a member of a Communist party

4. (often capital) any person holding left-wing views, esp when considered subversive

5. a person who practises communal living; communalist

6. another name for Communard

---

adjective

1. of, characterized by, favouring, or relating to communism; communistic

communist Cultural  

1. A supporter of communism.

---

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• anticommunist
  noun
• anticommunistic
  adjective
• anticommunistical
  adjective
• communistic
  adjective
• communistical
  adjective
• procommunist
  adjective
• anticommunistically
  adverb
• communistically
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• communists
  plural

Etymology

Origin of communist

From the French word communiste, dating back to 1835–45. See common, -ist

Explanation

Communism is a political doctrine that is an extreme form of Socialism, and anyone belonging to this particular political party is called a communist. A handful of countries call themselves communist, including China, Cuba, and North Korea — though many communists would disagree. We can find the roots of the word communist in the Latin communis, meaning "common" or "shared." These meanings certainly apply to the ideal version of Communism, which means that everyone is equal, and no one has more than anyone else. It was first used in English as both a noun and an adjective in 1841, taken from the French communiste. In the mid-20th Century, division between the U.S. and its allies and those that were Communist formed what became the “Cold War.”

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

communist communists

After the communist government fell in 1991, his family was handed ownership of its chunk of peninsula farmland, which had since gone fallow.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 9, 2026

Health care had long been a point of pride for Cuba's communist rulers, who were able to offer free care and highly subsidised medicines for all.

From Barron's ● Jul. 29, 2026

In 1942, when one of the leaders of the House Un-American Activities Committee baselessly accused the famous educator and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune of being a communist, Smith sprang into action.

From Salon ● Jul. 27, 2026

Von Hagens was born on January 10, 1945, in what was Nazi-occupied Poland and grew up in communist East Germany.

From Barron's ● Jul. 27, 2026

With the breakup of communist Russia, Artemis Senior had decided to invest a huge chunk of the Fowl fortune in establishing new shipping lines to the vast continent.

From "Artemis Fowl" by Eoin Colfer

During the McCarthy era, overreaching laws, surveillance, and public and private sector reprisals ostensibly targeted alleged communists.

From Salon ● May 28, 2026

Brown and black coal mining employed about 100,000 people in the 1980s, when the former Czechoslovakia was ruled by Moscow-steered communists promoting heavy industry.

From Barron's ● Jan. 29, 2026

Deftly unraveling the tangled politics of the moment, Mr. Wallace vividly shows La Guardia juggling factions of fusionist Republicans, communists, interventionists, isolationists, Tammany pols and a rat’s nest of the city’s fierce ethnic rivalries.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 17, 2025

Lai was born in Guangzhou, a city in southern China, to a wealthy family that lost everything when the communists took power in 1949.

From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2025

They abhorred McCarthy’s witch hunts for communists and his attacks on civil liberties.

From "The Woman All Spies Fear" by Amy Butler Greenfield