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militant

UK/ˈmɪlɪtənt/US/ˈmɪlɪtənt/
adjectiveC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #8,803 of 15,258leans written

Militant means prepared to use force to press a cause. A militant group, militant tactics, increasingly militant.

It sits between activist and terrorist, and which of the three a writer chooses is itself a political act — news organisations argue about it constantly. In older use it simply meant combative, as in the Church Militant, meaning the church still fighting on earth.

Definitions of militant

  1. 1adjectivemilitantPrepared to use force to press a cause.C1

    “Militant protesters threw stones and petrol bombs at the police.”

militant is a quality.

Where it comes from

Latin militans comes from militare, to serve as a soldier, from miles, a soldier.

  1. Latin

    mīlitāns

  2. Middle French

    militant

  3. English, today

    militant

Built from

  • mīlitāre · Latin — to serve as a soldier

From Middle French militant, from Latin mīlitāns, present participle of mīlitāre (“to serve as a soldier”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

militant in the wild

  • A militant is a person engaged in warfare or combat.

    Militant

  • John Simpson writes in a BBC piece that "terrorist" is a loaded word used by people who morally disapprove of militant actions.

    Militant

  • By the end of 1987, the militants had fought not only the Sri Lankan security forces but also the Indian Peace Keeping Force.

    Sri Lankan Tamil militant groups

  • Following is a list of Sri Lankan Tamil militant groups.

    List of Sri Lankan Tamil militant groups

  • The militant group remains subject to international sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council, the European Union, and other jurisdictions.

    Al-Shabaab (militant group)

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.