activist

/ˈækɾəvɪst/

/ˈæktɪvɪst/

Other forms: activists

An activist is a person who campaigns for some kind of social change. When you participate in a march protesting the closing of a neighborhood library, you're an activist.

Someone who's actively involved in a protest or a political or social cause can be called an activist. Demonstrations, strikes, and sit-ins are all ways that an activist might work toward the change she believes in. The root word of activist is the Latin actus, "a doing, a driving force, or an impulse." Someone who acts on what she believes is an activist.

Definitions of activist

1. noun

   a reformer who works to achieve social or political change
   synonyms: militant

   examples:

   Malcolm Little

   militant civil rights leader (1925-1965)

   types:

   Black Muslim

   an activist member of a largely American group of Blacks called the Nation of Islam

   Black Panther

   a member of the Black Panthers political party

   type of:

   crusader, meliorist, reformer, reformist, social reformer

   a person or group who pushes to improve an institution or system by changing it
2. adjective

   advocating or engaged in activism
   synonyms: activistic

   active

   disposed to take action or effectuate change