revisionist

[ri-vizh-uh-nist]

noun

1. an advocate of revision, especially of some political or religious doctrine.

2. a reviser.

3. any advocate of doctrines, theories, or practices that depart from established authority or doctrine.

adjective

1. of or relating to revisionists or revisionism.

2. attempting to reevaluate and restate the past based on newly acquired standards.

Other Word Forms

• antirevisionist noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of revisionist¹

First recorded in 1860–65; revision + -ist

Example Sentences

The result is a monumental revisionist work that will alter views on slavery inside and outside the Islamic world.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

But Borysenko, whose exclusive coverage of the event immediately preceded Alter’s firing, has herself repeatedly espoused extreme rhetoric on social media, even publicly embracing “fascism” and revisionist histories of Nazi Germany.

Read more on Salon

In fact, a Confederate journalist by the name of Edward A. Pollard began working on a revisionist history book that painted the South as noble and slavery as unimportant to their way of life.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Order federal employees and historians to rewrite the “revisionist” history with language that exudes patriotism.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

The starkest example is the embrace of a revisionist telling of the Capitol riots that plays down the violence that Biden-era Justice Department officials labeled as domestic terrorism.

Read more on Salon

Related Words

• anarchist 
• demagogue 
• firebrand 
• malcontent 
• propagandist 
• protestor www.thesaurus.com
• radical 
• troublemaker 
• zealot