Tory definition - Dictionary

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	torso

	tort

	tort-feasor

	torte

	tortellini

	torticollis

	tortilla

	tortilla chip

	tortillon

	tortious

	tortoise

	tortoise beetle

	tortoiseshell

	Tortola

	tortoni

	tortricid

	Tortuga Island

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Tory

To·ry [ táwree ] (plural To·ries)

noun

Definition:

1. history American supporter of Britain: a resident of the American colonies who supported Britain during the American Revolution

2. British Conservative: in Britain, a member of the Conservative Party

3. Canadian Conservative: in Canada, a member of the Progressive Conservative Party

4. history English royalist: a member of an English political party, active from the late 17th century until the 1830s, that supported the social order represented by the monarchy and the Church of England

5. supporter of conservative principles: somebody who holds politically conservative views

6. history 17C Irish outlaw: in 17th-century Ireland, any of the Irish people who became outlaws harrying the English settlers who had displaced and dispossessed them

[Mid-17th century. Via Irish tóraidhe "highwayman" < Old Irish tóir "to chase"]

To·ry adjective

To·ry·ism noun

Word History


	In English, Tory originally denoted an Irish guerrilla, one of a group of Irishmen who in the 1640s were thrown off their property by the British and took to a life of harrying and plundering the British occupiers. In the 1670s, it was applied as a term of abuse to Irish Catholic royalists, and then more generally to supporters of the Catholic James II, and after 1689 it came to be used for the members of the British political party that had at first opposed the removal of James and his replacement with the Protestants William and Mary.