abolitionist

comparative more abolitionist · superlative most abolitionist

1. In favor of the abolition of any particular institution or practice.
   1. historicalIn favor of the abolition of slavery.First known use since the late 18ᵗʰ century

      This case, and others, drove and enlarged the existing abolitionist movement in the country, opposed, of course, by the merchants and plantation owners who were making a massive profit from the slaves held in various colonies.

      2018 December 1, Drachinifel, 3:58 from the start, in Anti-Slavery Patrols - The West Africa Squadron, archived from the original on 29 Nov 2024

plural abolitionists

1. A person favoring or advocating for the abolition of any particular institution or practice.First known use since the late 18ᵗʰ century

   Both feminist and religiously inspired abolitionists have long viewed, and continue to view, male demand for commercial sex as a root cause of prostitution.

   2005, Julia O'Connell Davidson, Children in the Global Sex Trade, Polity, →ISBN, page 107

   1 more example

   Furthermore, abolitionists argue that prisons are a form of violence and should be destroyed because they reflect “a social ethos of violence and degradation" [...] Abolitionists argue that prisons should be replaced, or at least decentralized, by democratic community control and community-based treatment that would emphasize "redress" or "restorative justice."

   2007, J. Robert Lilly, Francis T. Cullen, Richard A. Ball, Criminological Theory: Context and Consequences, SAGE, →ISBN, page 198

   1. USespeciallyhistoricalA person favoring or advocating for the abolition of slavery.

      1 more example

      Among other slave notabilities of the plantation, was one called by everybody Uncle Isaac Copper. It is seldom that a slave gets a surname from anybody in Maryland; and so completely has the south shaped the manners of the north, in this respect, that even abolitionists make very little of the surname of a negro.

      1855, Frederick Douglass, chapter 3, in My Bondage and My Freedom. […], New York; Auburn, N.Y.: Miller, Orton & Mulligan […], →OCLC