Revolutionaries

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Individuals who actively seek to overthrow a governing body or system of authority
2. People engaged in significant political or social change through radical means
3. Advocates or participants in a major transformative movement, often aimed at establishing alternative governance

Etymology: "Revolutionaries" is the plural of "revolutionary", which English borrowed from French "révolutionnaire". The word began as a building block: "revolution" plus the suffix "-ary", a pattern English has long used to form adjectives and nouns meaning "pertaining to" or "a person connected with" something. The base word "revolution" originally had a very different sense. It came from Latin "revolutio", meaning a turning around or a rolling back, and for centuries it described the motion of heavenly bodies circling in their orbits. Astronomers spoke of planets completing a revolution, and the word carried no hint of upheaval. Only later did it come to mean a sudden, forcible change of government, so the rebel sense grew out of a literal image of something coming full circle.

Synonyms: rebels, insurgents, radicals

Antonyms: conservatives, traditionalists