reactionaryn.adj.

1799 Reply L. N. M. Carnot to Rep. Conspiracy 18th Fructidor 149 When in the Directory, I contributed to extricate it from new dangers, wherein these same villains, then acting as factious reactionaries [Fr. comme réacteurs], had plunged it.

1799 tr. F. D'Ivernois Hist. & Polit. Surv. Losses French Nation 11 The reign of the Moderatists..gave birth to what is called the reaction royale... The royal reactionaries [Fr. les réactionnaires royaux] committed crimes of which the histories of the most barbarous nations afford no example.

1844 Southern Q. Rev. Jan. 93 As soon as the system of terror was overthrown..the convention..had two sets of enemies to contend with. The violent revolutionists opposed to the reaction, and the violent reactionists, (reactionaries)..who wished to hasten the government back to monarchy.

1858 J. A. Froude Hist. Eng. (ed. 2) IV. 485 The reactionaries..watched for some change of fortune.

1908 Nation 1 Oct. 302/2 Part of Wall Street will vote for Taft because it believes him at heart a ‘reactionary’, or, at least, the less of two evils.

1921 G. B. Shaw Back to Methuselah ii. 52 I can find you hundreds of the most sordid rascals, or the most densely stupid reactionaries, with all these qualifications.

1967 tr. Quotations from Chairman Mao Tsetung (ed. 2) 75 The reactionaries in all countries are fools of this kind... Their persecution of the revolutionary people only serves to accelerate the people's revolutions.

1981 L. Deighton XPD ii. 5 Literally pogoni means epaulette, but for a citizen of the USSR..it is a symbol of the hated reactionary.

2004 Wall St. Jrnl. 26 July (Central ed.) a14/1 In response, Nicholas I became an autocratic reactionary. He cut Russia off from the West for 30 years.

1815 Times 30 Oct. 2 Many employees have reported, that the elections of the department have been conducted in a completely re-actionary spirit.

1821 Republican Compiler (Gettysburg, Pa.) 4 July They have restrained, however, the reactionary passions, and it is necessary to interfere thus, or not at all!

1858 J. A. Froude Hist. Eng. (ed. 2) III. 161 The reactionary members of the council had suggested a call of parliament.

1875 B. Jowett in tr. Plato Dialogues (ed. 2) III. 174 The fixed ideas of a reactionary statesman.

1916 H. G. Wells Mr. Britling sees it Through i. i. 16 Ruskin and Morris..were as reactionary and anti-scientific as the dukes and the bishops. Machine haters. Science haters.

1928 ‘N. Shute’ So Disdained (1990) i. 11 They tell me that I am reactionary.

1953 R. Lehmann Echoing Grove iii. 156 The British Government's iniquitous non-intervention policy playing into the hands of Franco's abominable reactionary conspiracy.

1974 tr. A. Snieckus Soviet Lithuania 23 The bourgeois nationalists set up various kinds of reactionary armed organisations to combat the revolutionary movement.

1989 W. Deverell Mindfield 7 Sarah Paradis had a feeling of foreboding about this chambers application. She'd drawn a bad judge, a reactionary dinosaur.

2002 S. Pinker Blank Slate (Book Club ed.) vi. 118 [A] leftism that considers even moderate and liberal positions reactionary.

1847 G. Grote Hist. Greece IV. ii. xxxvi. 497 The intensity of the subsequent displeasure would be aggravated by this reactionary sentiment.

1879 J. McCarthy Hist. our Own Times II. xviii. 40 The results of the year that followed were decidedly reactionary.

1920 D. H. Lawrence Women in Love xvi. 219 A liaison was only another kind of coupling, reactionary from the legal marriage. Reaction was a greater bore than action.

1979 Morning News (Karachi) 24 May 7/6 The Karachi rapeseeds market turned reactionary here yesterday.

2003 Business Jrnl. (Nexis) 7 Feb. 1 We want to practice preventative health care and not just reactionary medicine.