abolitionist

American  

[ab-uh-lish-uh-nist] / ˌæb əˈlɪʃ ə nɪst /

noun

1. (especially prior to the Civil War) a person who advocated or supported the abolition of slavery in the U.S.

2. a person who favors the abolition of any law or practice deemed harmful to society.

   the abolitionists who are opposed to capital punishment.

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Other Word Forms

• proabolitionist noun

Etymology

Origin of abolitionist

First recorded in 1830–40; abolition + -ist

Explanation

An abolitionist was someone who wanted to end slavery, especially in the United States before the Civil War — when owning slaves was common practice. Back when many landowners in the United States forced slaves to work their land, abolitionists believed that slavery violated the basic human right of freedom, and organized to make slavery illegal, writing anti-slavery literature, proposing new laws, and smuggling slaves into free Canada. The Latin root abolere means “destroy,” and an abolitionist is generally a person who wants to destroy any law or practice, like the abolitionists who fight to end the death penalty.

Example Sentences

History textbooks often include the story of the Underground Railroad, an organized network of secret routes, places and people that guided enslaved populations from the South to abolitionist Northern states.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 16, 2026

Some prosecutors aren’t waiting for the passage of abolitionist laws.

From Slate • Apr. 6, 2026

Refusing to fight back, writes Mr. Kurlansky, Garrison “showed how an abolitionist should face a mob.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 9, 2025

“Power concedes nothing without a demand,” she told a crowd gathered in Sproul Plaza on that October Thursday in 1964, quoting abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 5, 2025

Less than two weeks after the gathering—on August 2, 1848—a second women’s rights convention, organized by Amy Post, a prominent Quaker abolitionist, took place at the Unitarian church in Rochester, New York.

From "Votes for Women!" by Winifred Conkling