[f. COVENANT v. + -ER1.]
1. gen. One who covenants or enters into a covenant with others.
1643. Caryl, Sacr. Covt., 10. You must bid high for the honour of a Covenanter.
1656. S. Winter, Serm., 40. Abraham is brought in as the first explicit Covenanter.
1675. Brooks, Gold. Key, Wks. 1867, V. 288. Faithfulness is plainly and clearly declared … betwixt covenanters.
1850. E. H. Browne, Exp. 39 Art., xxvii. (1874), 615. But a covenant on God’s part implies the faithfulness of the Covenanter.
2. Sc. Hist. A subscriber or adherent of the National Covenant signed 28 Feb. 1638, or of the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643. (In Scotland traditionally pronounced covena·nter.)
1638. Dk. Hamilton, in H. Papers (Camden), 51. Take him to be a uoorse instrument then anie Couenanter.
1638. Charles I., in Hetherington, Hist. Ch. Scot. (1842), 290. I intend not to yield to the demands of those traitors the Covenanters.
a. 1670. Spalding, Troub. Chas. I., I. 108. This blew ribbin was worne and called ‘the Covenanter’s ribbin’ by the haill souldiers of the army.
1681. in Bagford Ballads (1878), 929. Each zealous Covenanter [rhyme a Ranter].
1817. Coleridge, Biog. Lit., 93. The same fanatic principle … emptied its whole vial of wrath on the miserable covenanters of Scotland.
1886. Morley, Mill’s Autobiog., Crit. Misc. III. 66. The temperament of the Scotch Covenanter of the 17th century.
