Wycliffites

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Adherents of the religious and reform doctrines of the 14th-century English theologian John Wycliffe, who challenged papal authority and church practice
2. Supporters of the theological views and reform movement initiated by John Wycliffe, the medieval English churchman who questioned ecclesiastical corruption and doctrine
3. Believers in the religious principles and reformist teachings of John Wycliffe, the influential English theologian of the later medieval period

Etymology: The Wycliffites were the followers of John Wycliffe, the fourteenth-century Oxford theologian who argued that scripture should be read by ordinary people in their own language and who criticised the wealth and authority of the church. Their opponents gave them the name, and it stuck as a label for the movement's adherents, who were also known as Lollards. The name is built from Wycliffe, the surname of the reformer, plus the suffix "-ite", which English took from Latin "-ita" and ultimately from Greek "-ītēs". The suffix has a long history of its own. In Greek it formed nouns denoting people belonging to a place or party, and Latin inherited that pattern and passed it into French as "-ite", from which English borrowed it. English speakers used it freely to name followers of a leader or doctrine, so a term like "Wycliffite" follows a familiar pattern: a founder's name with "-ite" attached to mark those who adhered to him.