progressionist
(prəʊˈgrɛʃənɪst)
[See -ist.]
1. An advocate of or believer in progression or progress; a progressist, a progressive.
| 1849 Fraser's Mag. XL. 391 Opposed to the influence of her unconscious Toryism, a Progressionist of susceptible temperament might be in danger of abandoning his opinions. 1854 Blackw. Mag. LXXV. 349 None but liberals or progressionists need apply. 1883 Standard 28 Mar. 3/4 Old⁓fashioned opera is not the lifeless thing which progressionists would seek to make out. 1886 S. L. Lee Life Ld. Herbert Introd. 40 A sure sign that Herbert was a sincere progressionist. |
2. One who holds that life on the earth has been marked by gradual progression from lower to higher forms.
| 1859 H. Spencer in Universal Review July 81 Sir R. Murchison, who is a Progressionist, calls the lowest fossiliferous strata, ‘Protozoic’. 1867 ― Princ. Biol. iii. §140 Were the geological record complete, or did it, as both Uniformitarians and Progressionists have habitually assumed, give us traces of the earliest organic forms. |
3. (See quots.) rare—0.
| 1864 Webster, Progressionist, one who holds to the progression of society toward perfection. 1882 Ogilvie (Annandale), Progressionist. 1. One who maintains the doctrine that society is in a state of progress towards perfection, and that it will ultimately attain to it. |
4. attrib. or as adj.
| 1871 Tylor Prim. Cult. I. ii. 29 The unprejudiced modern student of the progressionist school. 1883 Athenæum 8 Sept. 305/2 The progressionist tendency of the age. |
So proˈgressionism, the theory or principles of a progressionist, or sympathy with progress.
| 1861 A. Beresford-Hope Eng. Cathedr. 19th C. 143 That wise spirit of moderate and retrospective progressionism. |