Campaigners

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Individuals engaged in organized efforts to promote a particular cause or influence public policy
2. People actively working to rally support or advocate for changes within a community or society
3. Activists focused on conducting campaigns aimed at raising awareness and driving specific outcomes or results

Etymology: "Campaigners" is the plural of "campaigner", which is built from "campaign" plus the suffix "-er". The base word goes back to the military sense of a campaign: a series of operations in one area during a war, from the French "campagne", which traces to Latin "campania", the open country of a plain. Armies fought campaigns in a stretch of territory, and the word carried that sense for centuries before it was applied to a political or social push. The "-er" ending is what turned the noun into a person. Added to a noun, it can mark someone practising an occupation or role, and added to a verb, it names someone who performs the action. So a "campaigner" is either someone who runs campaigns or someone who campaigns, and the word for the person came after the word for the activity. The OED records "campaigner" as an English noun, and it describes a person active in a cause, which is the sense used here.

Synonyms: advocates, activists, promoters, lobbyists, supporters