Freedomite

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See also: freedomite

English

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WOTD – 22 January 2020

Etymology

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From freedom +‎ -ite (suffix forming nouns denoting adherents or followers of a specified doctrine, idea, movement, person, etc.), a calque of Russian Свободник (Svobodnik), from свобо́да (svobóda, “freedom, liberty”) + -ник (-nik, suffix creating masculine nouns, usually denoting a professional, performer, adherent, place, object, tool or a feature).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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Freedomite (plural Freedomites) (also attributively)

  1. (Canada, historical) A member of a Christian zealot sect that split off from the Doukhobors, and which was involved in protests against certain policies of the Canadian government during the early to mid 20th century; the Doukhobors were a non-Orthodox religious group which emigrated from Russia to Canada at the end of the 19th century to escape persecution.
    • 1945, Louisa W[atson] Peat, “Drama of the Doukhobor”, in Canada: New World Power, New York, N.Y.: Robert M[edill] McBride & Co., →OCLC, pages 77–78:
      They [the Freedomites] have no deep-down objection to education, but a child who learns his lessons in English instead of Russian, and who rubs shoulders with some other race of youngsters, is liable to get some of the "Freedomite" edges rubbed smooth. The children are said to be communal, and that he is—allegedly—a wise Freedomite who knows his own father.
    • 1962, Debates of the Senate: Official Report (Hansard) (Senate of Canada), Ottawa, Ont.: Queen’s Printer, →OCLC, page 55:
      I think the house will find it interesting to know that 124 Freedomites served as volunteers during World War II.
    • 1979, Mary Ashworth, The Forces which Shaped Them: A History of the Education of Minority Group Children in British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C.: New Star Books, →ISBN, page 166:
      The writer pointed out that of the approximately 12,500 Doukhobors in British Columbia, only about 2,500 belonged to the Freedomite group and of these only 46 families, involving 66 children, were currently refusing to send their children to school.
    • 2005, John McLaren, “The Law and Public Nudity: Prairie and West Coast Reactions to the Sons of Freedom, 1929–32”, in Louis A. Knafla, Jonathan Swainger, editors, Laws and Societies in the Canadian Prairie West, 1670–1940 (Law and Society), Vancouver, B.C.: UBC Press, →ISBN, part 2 (Adaptations to Modernity), pages 318–319:
      In certain quarters, the sentiment in relation to the Doukhobors was that the problems caused by the Freedomites were the result of zealotry and should not be confused with the aspirations and anxieties of the Doukhobor population at large, which was living in relative peace with itself and its neighbours. Freedomite resentment over and resistance to public education was no reason to undo the work of getting the rest of the Doukhobor community to buy into it.
  2. (Dominica) A member of the Dominica Freedom Party.
    • 1981, Caribbean Review, volume 10, Miami, Fla.: Caribbean Review, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 82:
      Although unable to make inroads into the Labor government until this election, the Freedomites stalled land reform, thwarting the socialist ideology of the party in power.
    • 2002, Irving W. Andre, Gabriel J. Christian, In Search of Eden: Dominica, the Travails of a Caribbean Mini-state, volume 2, Upper Marlboro, Md.: Pond Casse Press, →ISBN, page 9:
      Among the adherents of the new radicalism, the Freedom Party of 1970 was viewed as more a vehicle for criticism of the Labor regime (which the town-based Freedomites saw as an assault by the formerly powerless rural poor upon their citadel of privilege) than a catalyst for systemic change.
    • 2017 November 7, “Dr. Sam Christians steps down as DFP Deputy Leader”, in Dominica News Online‎[1], archived from the original on 26 March 2019:
      He told DNO on Monday differences within the party led to his resignation but remains a Freedomite and is firmly committed to the development of Dominica, especially after Hurricane Maria.
  3. (dated) One who advocates for freedom in various contexts.
    • 1879 January, E[dmund] W[illiam] Berridge, “Homœopathy Vindicated: A Reply to Dr. Joseph Kidd’s ‘Laws of Therapeutics’”, in The Organon: A Quarterly Anglo-American Journal of Homœopathic Medicine and Progressive Collateral Science, volume II, number 1, Liverpool: Adam Holden, →OCLC, page 35:
      To what terrible straits the Freedomites, men who persist in their efforts to exercise the right to pervert Homœopathy into Eclecticism, are driven, becomes apparent by this last public effort of the Editor of a Quarterly Journal (professedly a Homœopathic periodical) to make it appear that [Samuel] Hahnemann himself favoured that freedom of medical opinion and action which, as history shows, emboldened its advocates, till finally they denounced our Law of Cure, called it a good rule at times, to be embodied merely as one of the many expedients resorted to by the Eclectic School.
    • 1886, Sada Bailey Fowler, “Love at Fairyland”, in Irene; or, The Road to Freedom. A Novel, Philadelphia, Pa.: H. N. Fowler & Company, […], →OCLC, page 255:
      Woman must have the perfect arbitration of her own individuality. The right to vote is good so far as it goes, but it alone cannot free her if man continues his ownership and control of her person. In this opinion Irene perfectly agrees with the Social Freedomites, so called, and, with us she has entered into the most thorough investigation of woman's social condition in all departments of life and every avenue of society.
    • 1898 April 14, William H[arvey] Canfield, “Birthday Party”, in Old Settlers’ Illustrated Souvenir Album, [Baraboo, Wis.]: [Old Settlers’ Association of Sauk County], published [1901], →OCLC, page 28, column 2:
      In behalf of our dear old friend and fellow citizen, we, a few of the North Freedomites with a few of your immediate neighbors, met here this evening to celebrate your 80th birthday.
    • 1911 May, “A Letter from the South. Contributed by Los Angeles Strike Committee.”, in Jas. W. Kline, editor, The Blacksmiths Journal: Official Organ of the International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths and Helpers, volume XII, number 5, Chicago, Ill.: International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths and Helpers, →OCLC, page 26, column 1:
      The strike is being prosecuted so successfully that the M. and M. are driven to their wits' end. Even the non-unionists are rebelling at the benevolent despotism of the "Industrial Freedomites."
    • 1912 August, “Medical Freedom”, in John William Keating, Reuben Peterson, editors, Physician and Surgeon: A Professional Medical Journal, volume XXXIV, number VIII, Ann Arbor, Detroit, Mich.: John William Keating, →OCLC, page 339:
      The eyes of the public are being opened toward those grafters who are preying on the gullibility of the sick and bed-ridden humanity. [...] [T]hey have banded together, and under the guise of injured innocence they bob up again as exponents of "medical freedom." [...] The medical freedomite officers are the proselytes of the medical fake nostrums who, like the vultures, live on the carcasses of incurable diseases.
    • 1912 August 15, George Stein, “[Report to the International Typographical Union from George Stein, Los Angeles Representative, for the period June 1, 1912, to April 30, 1913]”, in J. W. Hays, editor, Supplement to the Typographical Journal: Official Paper of the International Typographical Union of North America, volume XLIII, number 2, Indianapolis, Ind.: J. W. Hayes, published 1913, →OCLC, page 227, column 1:
      A notorious "industrial freedomite" will begin publication of a daily in Santa Barbara. The officers of No. 349, after interviewing the promoter and hearing his defiant declaration that he would run an "open shop," presented the facts to the Santa Barbara Union at the regular meeting on April 13, 1913, when the union decided unanimously that union men will not be permitted to work on the paper.
    • 1917, [William Augustus] Evans, “Insurance”, in Dr. Evans’ How to Keep Well: A Health Book for the Home, New York, N.Y.: Published for Sears, Roebuck and Co. by D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, pages 1246–1247:
      One spring the National League for Medical Freedom advertised its opposition [...] to the expenditures of public money for the compulsory examination of school children. [...] As I have understood these Freedomites the freedom of the family to employ whom they pleased was just what they wanted. [...] If government modifies the policy to give the Freedomites the freedom asked for, they are "agin" that.
    • 1951, William F[rank] Buckley, Jr., “The Superstitions of ‘Academic Freedom’”, in God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of “Academic Freedom”, Chicago, Ill.: Regnery Publishing, →OCLC; 50th anniversary edition, Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2012, →ISBN:
      The extent to which relativism has conquered the thinking processes of the academic freedomites would, on reflection, I believe, astound even the most emphatic of their number.
    • 2004, Anthony Murphy, “Culture Clash: The Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) and the Austrian Avant-Garde in the 1990s”, in Ian Foster, Juliet Wigmore, editors, Neighbours and Strangers: Literary and Cultural Relations in Germany, Austria and Central Europe since 1989 (German Monitor; 59), Amsterdam, New York, N.Y.: Rodopi, →ISBN, abstract, page 143:
      Since the early 1990s, the Austrian Freedom Party, the FPÖ, has used the issue of culture as a political lever, claiming that the Left enjoyed hegemonic status in the arts in Austria. [...] Attacks on Hermann Nitsch, Elfriede Jelinek and Claus Peymann are characteristic of Freedomite tactics, but the force of rhetoric cannot disguise the absence of a genuine positive cultural policy once in power.

Alternative forms

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Translations

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Further reading

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