Leftist

How to spell leftist

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce leftist

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does leftist mean?

1. nounA person who supports left-wing political views such as social equality and reform.
2. adjectiveRelating to or characteristic of left-wing politics.

Leftist in a sentence

• noun

  The newspaper described her as a committed leftist for decades.

• adjective

  The magazine has a clearly leftist editorial line.

• noun

  As a lifelong leftist, he campaigned for higher taxes on wealth.

• adjective

  Several leftist groups organised the protest against the cuts.

Where does leftist come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word joins the everyday English word 'left' to the suffix '-ist', which marks a person who holds a particular doctrine. The word 'left' itself is Germanic, descending from Old English 'lyft', meaning 'weak' or 'foolish', a sense that survived in the idea of the weaker, less favoured side, hence the left hand. The political meaning is much younger and comes from the seating arrangement of the French National Assembly after the Revolution of 1789, where supporters of radical change sat to the president's left and conservatives to the right. English borrowed that political sense of 'left' in the nineteenth century, and 'leftist' as a labelled noun and adjective for a supporter of such politics emerged in the early twentieth century. Because the spelling simply stacks the familiar 'left' onto '-ist', the only real trap is remembering the single 't' before the suffix.

How the word is built

• left (the political left)
• -ist (one who adheres to)