Protestant

Pluralprotestants, Protestants

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A member of one of the Christian churches that separated from the Roman Catholic Church over theological or political differences during the Reformation.

   Her family has been Protestant for five generations.

   The region's Protestants and Catholics worshiped in separate churches.

   Note

   An umbrella term for a whole family of churches, including those that broke away during the Reformation and some that separated later. The word came from German Protestant or French protestant, each probably reinforcing the other, and it is built from protest plus -ant. It is always capitalized. In older writing about England and Ireland it could mean something narrower, a member of the established church.

2. 2
   adjective

   Relating to the several Christian denominations that separated from the Roman Catholic Church over theological or political differences during the Reformation.

   The war pitted Protestant princes against Catholic emperors.

   She was raised in a strongly Protestant household.

   Note

   Unlike many labels of affiliation, the adjective is freely graded. Napoléon Roussel set "the most Protestant" counties against the most Catholic ones in 1855, and Paul Freston's Protestant Political Parties (2004) speaks of "the more Protestant East" of Germany. There, degree measures share of population. When the Norwich Operative Protestant Association praised "a more Protestant meeting" in 1840, it measured fervor instead, alongside loyal and Christian.

3. 3
   nounhistoricalcountable

   A member of the established Church of England or Church of Ireland, distinguished from nonconformists and other dissenting Protestants.

   As a Protestant, he attended the established church rather than the dissenters' chapel.

   MR. SEXTON said, he had always understood that the difference between Protestants and Presbyterians was not a difference of creed, but as to episcopacy and practice.

   1893, Hansard 4th series Vol 13 HC Deb c.1001

   Note

   An older, narrower usage that can trip up a modern reader, because here Protestant leaves out Presbyterians and other dissenters. Theobald Wolfe Tone, writing in 1796, names three Irish denominations: Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter. In an 1893 Commons debate, Mr. Sexton still sets Protestants against Presbyterians. In such texts, read it as "Anglican." In your own writing, use the broad sense.

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