backslider

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English

Etymology

From backslide +‎ -er.

Pronunciation

  • Lua error in Module:parameters at line 290: Parameter 1 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value "UK" is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E. IPA(key): /ˈbakslaɪdə/
  • Lua error in Module:parameters at line 290: Parameter 1 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value "US" is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E. IPA(key): /ˈbækslaɪdəɹ/

Noun

backslider (plural backsliders)

  1. A recidivist; one who backslides, especially in a religious sense; an apostate.
    • 1888, Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Judgement of Dungara’, Black and White, Folio Society 2004, vol. 1, p. 382:
      At night the Red Elephant Tusk boomed and groaned among the hills, and the faithful waked and said: ‘The God of Things as They Are matures revenge against the backsliders.’
    • 2009, Andrew F. Cooper, "Confronting Vulnerability through Resilient Diplomacy: Antigua and the WTO Internet Gambling Dispute with the United States" in Andrew F. Cooper and Timothy M. Shaw (eds.), The Diplomacies of Small States: Between Vulnerability and Resilience, Palgrave Macmillan, p. 216,
      The choice of unilateralism by the US also exposed it to charges that it is a backslider on its WTO commitments.
    • 2012, Brian Bethune, "Two against one: About coupledom and the stigma of being single" in Maclean's, 20 June, 2012, [1]
      You say that you “lapse into coupledom” on occasion. Do you get grief from fellow militant singles for being a backslider?
    She married him thinking to change his ways, and for a while he got religion, but he was ever a backslider; she soon began finding bottles stashed about the house.