Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who holds to a belief in progress; a progressionist.
  • noun Specifically [capitalized] — In mod. Span. hist., a member of a political party holding advanced liberal views. The Progressists and Moderados were the two parties into which the Christinos (adherents of the queen regent Christina) separated about 1835.
  • noun A member of a liberal political party in Germany (Fortschrittspartei). formed in 1861. From it was formed, a few years later, the National Liberal party. The remnant in 1884 united with the Liberal Union to form the German Liberal party (Deutsch-Freisin-nige).

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun One who makes, or holds to, progress; a progressionist.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun One who makes or supports progress; a progressionist.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

progress +‎ -ist

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Examples

  • Darwin just slapped a progressist notion of natural selection onto it to explain the “perfection of adaptation” problem, diectky inspired in the theories of the economists that fathered capitalism.

    More anti-evolution rumblings in the UK - The Panda's Thumb 2006

  • This is true darwinism, and the source of the many progressist notions that darwin repeatedly came up with.

    More anti-evolution rumblings in the UK - The Panda's Thumb 2006

  • This is true darwinism, and the source of the many progressist notions that darwin repeatedly came up with.

    More anti-evolution rumblings in the UK - The Panda's Thumb 2006

  • In the parish of Briarfield, with which we have at present to do, Hollow's Mill was the place held most abominable; Gérard Moore, in his double character of semi - foreigner and thorough going progressist, the man most abominated.

    Shirley, by Charlotte Bronte 2004

  • Therefore Professor Sheehan is certainly right when he brings them together with "Germany," and he may even be right when he calls them "reactionary" as every "normal progressist" would do to whom the idea is unfamiliar that cognate religions could be imbued with reciprocal enmity as long as their self-confidence is strong enough — Abraham a Sancta Clara may serve as an example.

    Heidegger and Nazism: An Exchange Nolte, Ernst 1993

  • This picture fits too well into the prejudices of a "normal progressist" as to be adequate.

    Heidegger and Nazism: An Exchange Nolte, Ernst 1993

  • But while Mallock saw the reactionary and pessimistic side of his Oxford teacher, there was a progressist and optimistic side which does not appear in his “Mr. Herbert.”

    The Life of John Ruskin Collingwood, W G 1911

  • 'Malet wrote from Cairo to Paris, telling me that he still had confidence in the moderation of the progressist party represented by

    The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Volume 1 Stephen Lucius Gwynn 1907

  • But while Mallock saw the reactionary and pessimistic side of his Oxford teacher, there was a progressist and optimistic side which does not appear in his "Mr. Herbert."

    The Life of John Ruskin 1893

  • A small number of zealous reformers wished to regard this as a promise of a national assembly, but the great majority of the progressist leaders interpreted it merely as a guarantee against the undue preponderance of any one clan.

    A History of the Japanese People From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era Dairoku Kikuchi 1886

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