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• Tory
  Tory

  noun

  a member of the Conservative Party in Great Britain or Canada.
• -tory
  -tory

  a suffix occurring in loanwords from Latin, originally adjectival derivatives of agent nouns ending in -tor (predatory ); also forming adjectival derivatives directly from verbs (obligatory; transitory ).

Tory

¹ American  

[tawr-ee, tohr-ee] / ˈtɔr i, ˈtoʊr i /

noun

• Tories
  plural

1. a member of the Conservative Party in Great Britain or Canada.

2. a member of a political party in Great Britain from the late 17th century to about 1832 that favored royal authority over Parliament and the preservation of the existing social and political order: succeeded by the Conservative party.

3. (often lowercase) an advocate of conservative principles; one opposed to reform or radicalism.

4. a person who supported the British cause in the American Revolution; a loyalist.

5. (in the 17th century) a dispossessed Irishman who resorted to banditry, especially after the invasion of Oliver Cromwell and suppression of the royalist cause (1649–52).

6. a male or female given name.

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adjective

1. of, belonging to, or characteristic of the Tories.

2. being a Tory.

3. (sometimes lowercase) opposed to reform or radicalism; conservative.

-tory ² American  

1. a suffix occurring in loanwords from Latin, originally adjectival derivatives of agent nouns ending in -tor (predatory ); also forming adjectival derivatives directly from verbs (obligatory; transitory ).

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-tory ³ American  

1. a suffix occurring in loanwords from Latin, usually derivatives from agent nouns ending in -tor or directly from verbs, denoting a place or object appropriate for the activity of the verb: dormitory; repository .

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Tory British  

/ ˈtɔːrɪ /

noun

1. a member or supporter of the Conservative Party in Great Britain or Canada

2. a member of the English political party that opposed the exclusion of James, Duke of York from the royal succession (1679–80). Tory remained the label for subsequent major conservative interests until they gave birth to the Conservative Party in the 1830s

3. an American supporter of the British cause; loyalist Compare Whig

4. (sometimes not capital) an ultraconservative or reactionary

5. (in the 17th century) an Irish Roman Catholic, esp an outlaw who preyed upon English settlers

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adjective

1. of, characteristic of, or relating to Tories

2. (sometimes not capital) ultraconservative or reactionary

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• Toryism
  noun
• Toryish
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• Tories
  plural

Etymology

Origin of Tory¹

1640–50; < Irish *tóraighe outlaw, bandit, derivative of tóir chase, pursuit

Origin of -tory²

< Latin -tōrius, equivalent to -tōr- -tor + -ius adj. suffix

Origin of -tory³

< Latin -tōrium, noun use of neuter of -tōrius -tory ¹

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Tory Tories

But there is a positive atmosphere in No 10 too, one source telling me that the face-offs between Badenoch and Burnham have "breathed new life into the Labour versus Tory dynamic".

From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2026

Montgomerie joined Reform after a long career as a Tory adviser and commentator, and he had run the ConservativeHome website.

From BBC ● Sep. 8, 2026

On Saturday, Sir James announced he was quitting the Tory front bench as shadow secretary of state for housing, communities and local government to run for City Hall at the next mayoral election in 2028.

From BBC ● Aug. 31, 2026

Former Tory leadership candidate Tom Tugendhat will replace Dame Priti Patel as shadow foreign secretary, BBC News has been told.

From BBC ● Aug. 31, 2026

The plan, full of details intended to fool Clinton, was put into a pouch and given to an agent pretending to be a Tory farmer.

From "George Washington, Spymaster" by Thomas B. Allen

The army reservist represented the Tories on the London Assembly before his election as MP for Braintree in 2015.

From BBC ● Aug. 29, 2026

The mayor won nine of the 14 constituencies including two gains from the Tories, and gained 43.8% of the vote share.

From BBC ● Aug. 29, 2026

The politician became a household name in the 1990s due to her socially conservative views that put her on the right of the Tories.

From Barron's ● Jul. 13, 2026

You can’t entirely blame him: It was he, after all, who led Labour to its historic July 2024 victory over Sunak and the Tories, winning 411 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons.

From Salon ● Jun. 24, 2026

“Listen to me good. Them that feeds us”-she pointed upstairs-“they’rc Loyalists, Tories. That means we’re Tories, too, understand?”

From "Chains" by Laurie Halse Anderson

Related Words

• archconservative
• counterrevolutionary
• regressive
• rightist
• ultraconservative