secessionist

[si-sesh-uh-nist]

noun

1. a person who secedes, advocates secession, or claims secession as a constitutional right.

adjective

1. of or relating to secession or secessionists.

Other Word Forms

• secessionism noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of secessionist¹

An Americanism dating back to 1850–55; secession + -ist

Example Sentences

The Insurrection Act was Abraham Lincoln’s sword against secessionists and Dwight D. Eisenhower’s shield around the Little Rock Nine, the young Black students who were the first to desegregate schools in Arkansas.

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He is wrestling with a growing secessionist movement in the oil-rich province of Alberta.

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L.A.’s nonchalant highhandedness can gall today as it did 101 years ago when it precipitated what secessionists hailed as the “day of deliverance” from the “imperial county.”

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Such efforts eventually pushed the high representative to take action and annul the secessionist legislation.

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Cameroon is also in the grips of a secessionist war that has killed more than 6,000 people in the west of the country.

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Related Words

• agitator 
• anarchist 
• extremist 
• fanatic 
• firebrand 
• insurgent 
• leftist 
• militant 
• progressive 
• rebel 
• reformer 
• renegade 
• revolutionary 
• rioter www.thesaurus.com
• subversive