[f. UNITAR-Y + -IST.] An advocate of a unitary system of government; spec. a supporter of the unity of Italy. Also, in recent use (1910), unitarism.
1862. Parthenon, 26 July, 398. Was Cavour, up to the time of the treaty of Villafranca, ‘Unitarist’ or Federalist?
1882. Contemp. Rev., Sept., 465. The Constitutional Monarchists of Italy are naturally Unitarists.
1917. G. Saunders, in The New Europe, III. 31 May, 205–6. Many rights must in a federated empire be reserved by the separate states, and, unless what the Germans call ‘unitarism,’ as opposed to federalism, were to be established—which would be an extreme and altogether improbable political revolution—the Government and the Parliament of the Empire would not be able to change the spirit and practice of the administration in the reactionary German States. Ibid., 213. The proposed constitutional court (No. 2) for fixing the responsibility of the Chancellor was described by Conservative members as a step towards ‘unitarism.’
