segregationist
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
- ultrasegregationist noun
Etymology
Origin of segregationist
First recorded in 1910–15; segregation + -ist
Explanation
Someone who believes that people of different races shouldn't live, work, or go to school together is a segregationist. As the laws about racial segregation have changed, it's become less and less socially acceptable to openly be a segregationist. Before the 1950s, there were many white segregationists who actively opposed the integration of schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods, and until 1967 it was still illegal for black and white people to marry each other in some US states. Segregationist comes from the Latin root segregare, "set apart, isolate, or divide."
Vocabulary lists containing segregationist
Stamped
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Warriors Don't Cry
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Just Mercy
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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.
Worse, it portrayed the beloved character of Atticus Finch as a segregationist.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 31, 2025
The movie trusts you know who segregationist George Wallace was, just as you’ll be able to appreciate the joy of seeing an unidentified Stevie Wonder on stage with Lennon.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 11, 2025
White bridge-builders were key to liberating the segregationist South, as the historian David Chappel shows in his book Inside Agitators.
From Salon • Aug. 23, 2024
In the US, the word harks back to the Jim Crow era, when segregationist laws were instituted in the southern states to oppress black Americans after slavery was banned.
From BBC • Dec. 8, 2023
Hodges’ chief political foe at this time was an outspoken segregationist named I. Beverly Lake, an assistant state attorney general, who, it was rumored, planned to oppose Hodges in the 1956 gubernatorial race.
From "The Best of Enemies" by Osha Gray Davidson
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.
