Also 7 sun-. [f. Gr. συνεργός (see prec.) + -IST.]
1. Theol. One who holds the doctrine of synergism. Also attrib.
1657. Gaule, Sap. Just., 11. That the Adamical will, or will from Adams fall,… in the act of Conversion … is thereunto actively cooperating together with God; so the Erasmians, the Sunergists, and Arminians.
1764. Maclaine, trans. Mosheim’s Eccl. Hist., Cent. XVI. III. II. i. § 30 (1833), 488/1. The Synergists … denied that God was the only agent in the conversion of sinful man.
1882–3. Schaff’s Encycl. Relig. Knowl., III. 2280/1. Strigel,… one of the professors at Jena, and a synergist.
1883. T. M. Lindsay, in Encycl. Brit., XV. 85/1. The Synergist controversy, which discussed the nature of the first impulse in conversion.
2. Med. and Physiol. A medicine, etc., or a bodily organ (e.g., a muscle) that co-operates with another or others: cf. SYNERGY b. Hence Synergize v. intr., to act as a synergist, co-operate, as a remedy, or an organ, with another.
1876. Bartholow, Mat. Med. (1889), 491. Stramonium … Antagonists, Incompatibles, and Synergists, are the same as for belladonna. Ibid., 136 [see SYNERGISTIC 2].
