conservative

Definition

A person who favors maintenance of the status quo.

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French conservatif, from Latin cōnservō (“to preserve”). Equivalent to conserve + -ative.

Example Sentences

• "During the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, this commitment brought him into frequent critical confrontation with entrenched forms of conservative thinking (in academic areas from history and social science to the more abstract domains of ethical and political philosophy),[…]"
• "If there’s a down side to the film, it’s that “Soros” probably doesn’t devote enough time to the way its subject has become a favorite bogeyman to conservatives that paint him as the guiding hand behind grassroots campaigns by those intent on discrediting them."