■ noun ( plural Tories )
1》 a member or supporter of the British Conservative Party.
2》 a member of the English political party opposing the exclusion of James II from the succession and, later, of the British parliamentary party supporting the established religious and political order until the emergence of the Conservative Party in the 1830s.
3》 US a colonist who supported the British side during the War of American Independence.
Derivatives
~ism noun
Word History
~ is probably derived from the Irish word toraidhe 'outlaw, highwayman', and was originally used of Irish peasants dispossessed by English settlers and living as robbers. It was extended to marauders in the Scottish Highlands, and then adopted in about 1679 as an abusive nickname for supporters of the future James II. After James's deposition ~ lost its negative connotations and was applied to members of the English, later British, parliamentary party which supported the established religious and political order and opposed the Whigs. This party became the Conservative Party in the 1830s.