a member of the patriotic party during the Revolutionary period; supporter of the Revolution.
b.
a member of a political party (c1834–1855) that was formed in opposition to the Democratic party, and favored economic expansion and a high protective tariff, while opposing the strength of the presidency in relation to the legislature.
2.
British Politics.
a.
a member of a major political party (1679–1832) in Great Britain that held liberal principles and favored reforms: later called the Liberal party.
b.
(in later use) one of the more conservative members of the Liberal party.
–adjective
3.
being a Whig.
4.
of, pertaining to, or characteristic of the Whigs.
[Origin: 1635–45; earlier, a Covenanter, hence an opponent of the accession of James II; of uncert. orig., though prob. in part a shortening of whiggamaire (later whiggamore), a participant in the Whiggamore Raid a march against the royalists in Edinburgh launched by Covenanters in 1648 (said to represent whig to spur on (cf. whig) + mairemare1)]
A member of an 18th- and 19th-century British political party that was opposed to the Tories.
A supporter of the war against England during the American Revolution.
A 19th-century American political party formed to oppose the Democratic Party and favoring high tariffs and a loose interpretation of the Constitution.
[Probably short for Whiggamore, a member of a body of 17th-century Scottish Presbyterian rebels.]
British political party, 1657, in part perhaps a disparaging use of whigg "a country bumpkin" (c.1645); but mainly a shortened form of Whiggamore (1649) "one of the adherents of the Presbyterian cause in western Scotland who marched on Edinburgh in 1648 to oppose Charles I." Perhaps originally "a horse drover," from dialectal verb whig "to urge forward" + mare. The name was first used 1689 in reference to members of the British political party that opposed the Tories. American Revolution sense of "colonist who opposes Crown policies" is from 1768. Later it was applied to opponents of Andrew Jackson (1825), and taken as the name of a political party (1834) that merged into the Republican Party in 1854-56. Whig historian "one who views history as an inevitable march of progress" is recorded from 1924.
Lib"er*al\, n. One who favors greater 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.
Whig\, n. [Said to be from whiggam, a term used in Scotland in driving horses, whiggamore one who drives horses (a term applied to some western Scotchmen), contracted to whig. In 1648, a party of these people marched to Edinburgh to oppose the king and the duke of Hamilton (the Whiggamore raid), and hence the name of Whig was given to the party opposed to the court. Cf. Scot. whig to go quickly.]1. (Eng. Politics) One of a political party which grew up in England in the seventeenth century, in the reigns of Charles I. and II., when great contests existed respecting the royal prerogatives and the rights of the people. Those who supported the king in his high claims were called Tories, and the advocates of popular rights, of parliamentary power over the crown, and of toleration to Dissenters, were, after 1679, called Whigs. The terms Liberal and Radical have now generally superseded Whig in English politics. See the note under Tory. 2. (Amer. Hist.) (a) A friend and supporter of the American Revolution; -- opposed to Tory, and Royalist. (b) One of the political party in the United States from about 1829 to 1856, opposed in politics to the Democratic party.
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