reformist

reform +‎ -ist. Originated around the end of the 16th century.

reformist (comparative more reformist, superlative most reformist)

1. Advocating reform of an institution or body.
   • 1913 Émile Faguet, Initiation into Literature translated by Sir Home Gordon

     [...] all the prose is German, all reformist, all moralising, and has little or practically no echo of antiquity.

2. Specifically, advocating reform and the gradual accumulation of small changes, as opposed to revolutionary action.

• (advocating small changes) revolutionary

reformist (plural reformists)

1. One who advocates reform (of an institution).
2. Specifically, one who advocates reform of society and the gradual accumulation of small changes, as opposed to revolutionary action.
3. (dated, 17th C.) An advocate of reform in the Church of England; a Reformer.
4. (dated, 18th century) An advocate or supporter of political reform in the United Kingdom. (Common from ca 1790 to 1830.)
5. A member of a reformed religious denomination.

• Oxford English Dictionary, 1884–1928, and First Supplement, 1933.
• Hélyot, Dictionnaire des Ordres Religieux, Paris, Migne, 1850

• For quotations of use of this term, see Citations:reformist. (entry for reformist in the Oxford English Dictionary, first edition)

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