dissentient

English

Etymology

From the Latin dissentient, dissentiēns (“dissenting”).

Noun

dissentient (plural dissentients)

1. A dissenter.
   • 1943 November – 1944 February (date written; published 1945 August 17), George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Animal Farm […], London: Secker & Warburg, published May 1962, →OCLC:

     The vote was taken at once, and it was agreed by an overwhelming majority that rats were comrades. There were only four dissentients, the three dogs and the cat, who was afterwards discovered to have voted on both sides.

   • 1962 November, “Talking of Trains: The one-day strike”, in Modern Railways, page 291:

     Naturally, the wisdom of striking to remedy grievances was questioned; but there were few dissentients from the view that the Government and B.T.C. are mishandling the human relations involved.

Adjective

dissentient (comparative more dissentient, superlative most dissentient)

1. Dissenting; of a different opinion.
   • 1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 198:

     Moody and Sankey had sung their way into every dissentient chapel, and Boshy appreciated their words thoroughly, and sang them to a wrong tune incessantly.

   • 1914, Saki, ‘The Story-teller’, Beasts and Superbeasts, Penguin 2000 (Complete Short Stories), p. 354:

     A dissentient opinion came from the aunt.

   • 1996, Richard Adams, Tales from Watership Down:

     When the news spread through the warren, there was not a dissentient voice.

Synonyms

• dissentious

Derived terms

• dissentience
• dissentiency
• dissentiently

References

• “dissentient”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Latin

Verb

dissentient

1. third-person plural future active indicative of dissentiō