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One who effects a reformation or amendment; one who labors for, or urges, reform; as, a reformer of manners, or of abuses.

One who agitates; one who stirs up or excites others; as, political reformers and agitators.

A sect of reformers opposed to the church of Rome in the 12th centuries.

irst advocates any important belief; one who has extraordinary success as a missionary or reformer; as, Dionysius of Corinth is called the apostle of France, John Eliot the apostle to the Indians, Theobald Mathew the apostle of temperance.

harm; in expectation of evil. Not at all apprehensive of evils as a distance. Tillotson. Reformers . . . apprehensive for their lives. Gladstone.

The theological tenets or doctrines of John Calvin (a French theologian and reformer of the 16th century) and his followers, or of the so-called calvinistic churches.

One who comes out or withdraws from a religious or other organization; a radical reformer. [Colloq. U. S.]

One who destroys; a radical reformer; a destructionist.

nce. Before Wyclif's death in 1384, John of Gaunt had openly dissociated himself from the reformer. A. W. Ward.

A follower of Wyclif, the first English religious reformer; hence, a Puritan. [Obs.] Latimer. The persecution was carried on against the gospelers with much fierceness by those of the Roman persuasion. Strype.

A follower of John Huss, the Bohemian reformer, who was adjudged a heretic and burnt alive in 1415.

ater freedom in political or religious matters; an opponent of the established systems; a reformer; in English politics, a member of the Liberal party, so called. Cf. Whig.

One of a sect of early reformers in Germany.

One of a class of religious reformers in Germany in the 17th century who sought to revive declining piety in the Protestant churches; -- often applied as a term of reproach to those who make a display of religious feeling. Also used adjectively.

ent from, a decree of the Emperor Charles V. and the Diet of Spires, in 1529, against the Reformers, and appealed to a general council; -- now used in a popular sense to designate any Christian who does not belong to the Roman Catholic or the Greek Church.

A reformer.

ly; completely; as, to destroy an error root and branch. -- Root-and-branch men, radical reformers; -- a designation applied to the English Independents (1641). See Citation under Radical, n., 2. -- Root barnacle (Zoöl.), one of the Rhizocephala. -- Root hair (Bot.), one of the slender, hairlike fibers found on the…

A name given in the sixteenth century to those German reformers who rejected both the Roman and the Lutheran doctrine of the holy eucharist.

A member of a religious sect founded by Kaspar von Schwenkfeld, a Silesian reformer who disagreed with Luther, especially on the deification of the body of Christ.

rnest; bold; valiant; intrepid; as, a strenuous advocate for national rights; a strenuous reformer; a strenuous defender of his country. And spirit-stirring wine, that strenuous makes. Chapman. Strenuous, continuous labor is pain. I. Taylor. -- Stren"u*ous*ly, adv. -- Stren"u*ous*ness, n.