reactionary

From French réactionnaire[1]. Used in the time of the French revolution to refer to a person opposing the revolution; as in a person favoring a reaction to the revolution. First known usage in English in a translation of Lazare Carnot's letter on the Conspiracy of the 18th Fructidor published in London, 1799.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɹiˈækʃən(ə)ɹi/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɹiˈækʃəˌnɛɹi/
• Hyphenation: re‧ac‧tion‧ary
• Rhymes: -æri

reactionary (comparative more reactionary, superlative most reactionary)

1. Politically favoring a return to a supposed golden age of the past.
   • 2011 September 29, Corey Robin, The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin, New York: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, OL 25101368M, page 25:

     There's a fairly simple reason for the embrace of radicalism on the right, and it has to do with the reactionary imperative that lies at the core of conservative doctrine. […] If he is to preserve what he values, the conservative must declare war against the culture as it is.

2. (chemistry) Of, pertaining to, participating in or inducing a chemical reaction.
   • 2013, Brandon Smith, Are Individuals The Property Of The Collective?

     Psychiatry extends the theory into biology in the belief that all human behavior is nothing more than a series of reactionary chemical processes in the brain that determine pre-coded genetic responses built up from the conditioning of one’s environment.

• nonreactionary

reactionary (plural reactionaries)

1. One who is opposed to change.
2. One who is very conservative.

• "reactionary" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 256.

• creationary