a member of any of various bands of workers in England (1811–16) organized to destroy manufacturing machinery, under the belief that its use diminished employment.
Origin: 1805–15; after Ned Ludd, 18th-century Leicestershire worker who originated the idea; see -ite1
Any of a group of British workers who between 1811 and 1816 rioted and destroyed laborsaving textile machinery in the belief that such machinery would diminish employment.
One who opposes technical or technological change.
[After Ned Ludd, an English laborer who was supposed to have destroyed weaving machinery around 1779.] Lud'dism n.