释义 |
Definition of Whig in English: Whignoun wɪɡ(h)wɪɡ historical 1A member of the British reforming and constitutional party that sought the supremacy of Parliament and was eventually succeeded in the 19th century by the Liberal Party. Compare with Tory (sense 1 of the noun) Example sentencesExamples - In 1783, with Tory Prime Minister Shelbourne's government in ruin, George III was appalled at the idea of accepting a Whig as prime minister.
- The aristocratic Whigs had passed the Reform Bill in 1832 to hitch the middle classes to the constitution, but increasingly they faced criticism from radicals for standing in the way of democracy.
- Like Burke, Scott was suspicious of the French Revolution and was much alarmed by Napoleonic Imperialism and Whigs ' Reform Bill.
- It was the era when William Pitt, prime minister and head of the Tory Party, clashed with Charles Fox and his more liberal Whigs.
- In 1830, he became Whig Member of Parliament for Calne in Wiltshire and helped pass the Reform Act of 1832.
2A supporter of the American side during the War of American Independence. Example sentencesExamples - A political party in favor of American independence, Whigs are usually anti-British and are willing to fight if they have to.
- 2.1 A member of an American political party in the 19th century, succeeded by the Republicans.
Example sentencesExamples - Thomas Jefferson endured a vicious, partisan press, and Lincoln saw his Whig party splinter into anti-slavery Republicans and popular sovereignty Democrats.
- So long as the populace preserved republican virtues, Whigs saw hope in an emerging industrial nation.
- At the same time, however, those alienated by Federalists and Whigs proved somewhat reluctant to cast their lot with political parties dominated by southern planters.
- Taylor was the last Whig to be elected president.
- It was the American Whigs, typified by Lincoln, who freed the slaves - in the only way in which that could be done.
3A 17th-century Scottish Presbyterian. Example sentencesExamples - A high-church Whig, he was appointed bishop of Lincoln in 1716, and in 1723 translated to the see of London.
- Educated at Edinburgh and Glasgow Universities, he was a Whig who became a Scottish judge and an MP.
- What was crucial for the post-revolutionary Whigs that comprised the Scottish Enlightenment was not Locke but rather their own institutional status.
4as modifier Denoting a historian who interprets history as the continuing and inevitable victory of progress over reaction. Example sentencesExamples - If Thomas Babington Macaulay gave us the Whig interpretation of history, Victor Davis Hanson has given us the Marvel Comics interpretation, with added Thucydides.
- You align yourself with Whig historians, happy to see the victory of the Hanoverian regime as a necessary triumph of progress and pragmatism.
- This is nothing more than an updated version of what was called the Whig interpretation of history.
- Moreover, as the Whig historian Lord Macaulay put it, the best policy for the capitalist ruling class is to ‘reform that you may preserve’.
- Colin Kidd has claimed that this, and the ahistorical ‘modernization’ of the Whig historians, deprived the Scots of a weapon available to other European nationalisms.
Derivatives noun ˈwɪɡəriˈ(h)wɪɡ(ə)ri historical It is remarkable - though not surprising - that this reassertion of Whiggery came through the pens of two members of the old aristocratic establishment. Example sentencesExamples - Many dinners were hosted and attended by well-known left-wingers, and the stage was set for the revival of Whiggery on the British political landscape.
- That is the only way one can deal with Whiggery, and I implore all decent-thinking, true Americans to heed my urgent call to arms!
- The second paragraph defines the Torygraph conception of Whiggery, ‘the traditional Whig principle of upholding our constitutional settlement.’
- Coningsby celebrates the new Tories of the ‘Young England’ set, whose opposition to Whiggery and whose concern at the treatment of the poor and the injustice of the franchise is strongly reflected in the narrative.
adjective ˈwɪɡɪʃˈ(h)wɪɡɪʃ historical The final chapter, ‘Impossible History and the Politics of Hope,’ identifies ‘impossible’ as not imaginable within a Whiggish history of progressive development. Example sentencesExamples - But Phillips sounds Whiggish indeed in regarding the three wars as building up to a global destiny.
- Hall interpreted the political origins of the western states in the most strident of Whiggish sentiments and the relinquishment of Indian land rights in the self-justifying rhetoric of dispossession.
- Indeed, in what seemed to be a throwback to nineteenth century Whiggish history, the viewing public were being sold a figure as being the greatest Briton.
- Shelley was increasingly impatient with Whiggish parliamentary reform and compromise.
noun ˈwɪɡɪz(ə)mˈ(h)wɪɡˌɪzəm historical In 1820 Scott, with other prominent Tories, secretly financed the new Tory journal the Beacon (latter reissued as the Sentinel), whose aim was to assail radical Whiggism. Example sentencesExamples - One tempting way of picturing the result is to view Whiggism as a kind of metropolitan magnet that represented the interests of the merchants and financiers of London and the magnates of the English heartland.
- He denied crossing the political spectrum, declaring that he was never a democrat or republican, but ‘I was a Whig, I admit, till I was ashamed of Whiggism.’
- For the price of Hanoverian identification with Whiggism, albeit a somewhat watery Whiggism, was the permanent alienation of the die-hard ‘country’ Tory families.
- Lansdowne was a Whig grandee and for decades Bowood in Wiltshire and Lansdowne House in London were headquarters of Whiggism.
Origin Mid 17th century (in Whig (sense 3)): probably a shortening of Scots whiggamore, the nickname of 17th-century Scottish rebels, from whig 'to drive' + mare1. Rhymes big, brig, dig, fig, gig, grig, jig, lig, pig, prig, rig, snig, sprig, swig, tig, trig, twig, wig Definition of Whig in US English: Whignoun(h)wɪɡ(h)wiɡ historical 1A member of the British reforming and constitutional party that sought the supremacy of Parliament and was eventually succeeded in the 19th century by the Liberal Party. Example sentencesExamples - The aristocratic Whigs had passed the Reform Bill in 1832 to hitch the middle classes to the constitution, but increasingly they faced criticism from radicals for standing in the way of democracy.
- Like Burke, Scott was suspicious of the French Revolution and was much alarmed by Napoleonic Imperialism and Whigs ' Reform Bill.
- In 1830, he became Whig Member of Parliament for Calne in Wiltshire and helped pass the Reform Act of 1832.
- In 1783, with Tory Prime Minister Shelbourne's government in ruin, George III was appalled at the idea of accepting a Whig as prime minister.
- It was the era when William Pitt, prime minister and head of the Tory Party, clashed with Charles Fox and his more liberal Whigs.
2An American colonist who supported the American Revolution. Example sentencesExamples - A political party in favor of American independence, Whigs are usually anti-British and are willing to fight if they have to.
- 2.1 A member of an American political party in the 19th century, succeeded by the Republicans.
Example sentencesExamples - At the same time, however, those alienated by Federalists and Whigs proved somewhat reluctant to cast their lot with political parties dominated by southern planters.
- Thomas Jefferson endured a vicious, partisan press, and Lincoln saw his Whig party splinter into anti-slavery Republicans and popular sovereignty Democrats.
- It was the American Whigs, typified by Lincoln, who freed the slaves - in the only way in which that could be done.
- So long as the populace preserved republican virtues, Whigs saw hope in an emerging industrial nation.
- Taylor was the last Whig to be elected president.
3A 17th-century Scottish Presbyterian. Example sentencesExamples - Educated at Edinburgh and Glasgow Universities, he was a Whig who became a Scottish judge and an MP.
- What was crucial for the post-revolutionary Whigs that comprised the Scottish Enlightenment was not Locke but rather their own institutional status.
- A high-church Whig, he was appointed bishop of Lincoln in 1716, and in 1723 translated to the see of London.
4as modifier Denoting a historian who interprets history as the continuing and inevitable victory of progress over reaction. Example sentencesExamples - This is nothing more than an updated version of what was called the Whig interpretation of history.
- Moreover, as the Whig historian Lord Macaulay put it, the best policy for the capitalist ruling class is to ‘reform that you may preserve’.
- Colin Kidd has claimed that this, and the ahistorical ‘modernization’ of the Whig historians, deprived the Scots of a weapon available to other European nationalisms.
- You align yourself with Whig historians, happy to see the victory of the Hanoverian regime as a necessary triumph of progress and pragmatism.
- If Thomas Babington Macaulay gave us the Whig interpretation of history, Victor Davis Hanson has given us the Marvel Comics interpretation, with added Thucydides.
Origin Mid 17th century (in Whig (sense 3)): probably a shortening of Scots whiggamore, the nickname of 17th-century Scottish rebels, from whig ‘to drive’ + mare. |