backslider
[f. as prec. + -er1.]
One who backslides or falls away from an adopted course, esp. of religious faith or practice; an apostate, renegade.
| 1581 Savile Tacitus' Hist. i. (R.) A traitor and backslider to him. 1772 Priestley Inst. Relig. (1782) II. 306 A backslider..is worse than one who had never known the right way. 1873 Holland A. Bonnic. viii. 141 The backsliders are returning to their first love. |