[f. as prec. + -ER1.] One who backslides or falls away from an adopted course, esp. of religious faith or practice; an apostate, renegade.
1581. Savile, Tacitus’ Hist., I. (R.). A traitor and backslider to him.
1772. Priestley, Inst. Relig. (1782), II. 306. A backslider … is worse than one who had never known the right way.
1873. Holland, A. Bonnic., viii. 141. The backsliders are returning to their first love.
