[f. Adullam, name of a place in the tribe of Judah, where there was a noted cave, + -ITE.]
1. prop. An inhabitant of Adullam.
1382. Wyclif, Gen. xxxviii. 12. Yras the sheepherd of the flok, Odollamyte in Tampnas. Ibid. (1611). He and his friend Hirah the Adullamite.
2. A frequenter of the cave of Adullam. fig. A nickname applied in 1866 to certain members of the British House of Commons, who seceded from the Liberal party then in power, from dissatisfaction with their attempt to carry a measure of Parliamentary Reform. The name originated with an expression in a speech by Mr. Bright; see quot.
[Cf. Bible, 1 Sam. xxii. 1, 2.
1866. Bright, Sp. (1876), 349. The right hon. gentleman is the first of the new party who has expressed his great grief, who has retired into what may be called his political Cave of Adullam, and he has called about him every one that was in distress and every one that was discontented.’]
1866. Pall Mall G., 7 July, 2/1. None of the other leading Adullamites were visible.
1880. McCarthy, Hist. Own Times, IV. l. 65. The little third party were at once christened the Adullamites, and the name still survives and is likely long to survive its old political history.
