[Cf. prec. and F. socialiste (Reybaud, 1835).]
1. One who advocates or believes in the theory of socialism; an adherent or supporter of socialism.
1833. Poor Man’s Guardian, 24 Aug., 275/2. [Letter signed] A Socialist.
1833. The Crisis, 31 Aug., 276/1. The Socialist, who preaches of community of goods, abolition of crime, of punishment, of magistrates, and of marriage.
1853. W. Jerdan, Autobiogr., III. xix. 289. He was … a Socialist in the best sense of the term.
1889. G. B. Shaw, Fabian Ess. Socialism, 182. The young Socialist is apt to be catastrophic in his views.
2. attrib. or as adj. Of or pertaining to socialists; socialistic: a. Of persons.
1839. J. Mather, Socialism Exposed, 23. A socialist lecturer expressed his ideas of God.
1856. Geo. Eliot, Ess. (1884), 114. The Socialist party.
1887. St. James’s Gaz., 8 Feb. (Cassell). The torchlight Socialist procession.
b. Of ideas, theories, etc.
1848. W. E. Forster, in Reid, Life (1888), I. vii. 246. The worst of all Socialist plans I have seen is that all have within them … a damning desire to shirk work.
1850. Macaulay, in Trevelyan, Life (1883), II. 284. The poem is to the last degree Jacobinical, indeed Socialist.
1861. Illustr. Lond. N., 17 Aug., 152/1. Working classes … declare their adhesion to the socialist idea.
