accommodationistn.adj.
/əˌkɒməˈdeɪʃn̩ɪst/, /əˌkɒməˈdeɪʃənɪst/, U.S. /əˌkɑməˈdeɪʃənəst/ A. n.
Originally: a person who seeks to mediate between opposing factions or views in the interest of fairness, clarity, etc. Later also: (sometimes depreciative) a person considered willing to compromise with opponents in order to preserve social or political stability.
ΚΠ
a1832 J. Bentham Princ. Judicial Procedure in Wks. (1843) II. xviii. 104/1 On the accommodation-engagement instrument, the matter of the accommodationist's code will have been printed.
1858 P. Fairbairn Hermeneutical Man. iii. ii. 417 The mere accommodationists are not worth arguing against.
1965 O. Davis in Negro Digest (1966) Feb. 66 He [sc. Malcolm X] still delighted in..making Uncle Toms, compromisers, and accommodationists..ashamed of the urbane and smiling hypocrisy we practice merely to exist in a world whose values we both envy and despise.
1986 New Yorker 22 Sept. 75/3 These people, the real inheritors of the movement, were distressed by the popularizers and the accommodationists.
2003 Nature 24 Apr. 813/2 Gould was not as strict: he was an accommodationist, insisting..that both religion and science are independent and valid domains of enquiry.
B. adj.
Of or relating to accommodationists or their methods; tending to seek or promote compromise.
ΚΠ
1919 3rd Triennial Rep. Joint Comm. on Soc. Service of Episcopal Church 81 This new movement opposes equally the ‘accommodationist’ attitude of orthodox British unionism.
1972 New Yorker 2 Dec. 99/1 The genuine conservatives, those protectors of Booker T. Washington's accommodationist legacy, who had counselled ‘first your country, then your rights’.
1979 World Politics 31 328 The literature dealing with accommodationist techniques for achieving and preserving stability in deeply divided societies has expanded rapidly.
1989 Spectator 5 Aug. 30/2 The years to come saw a continuing struggle..by the Israelis..to bring out the accommodationist ‘moderates’.
2003 Church Times 11 Apr. 14/2 An accommodationist methodological move that has already sold the pass and accepted promiscuous values.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2011; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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n.adj.a1832