a supporter of a Conservative party, esp the British Conservative Party
a member of a major British political group of the 18th and early 19th cents favouring at first the Stuarts and later royal authority and the established Church and seeking to preserve the traditional political structure and defeat parliamentary reform: compare Whig
an American upholding the cause of the crown during the American Revolution
Tory adj
Toryism noun
Irish Gaelic tóraidhe pursuer, robber, from early Irish tóir pursuit. The word was orig applied to dispossessed Irish Royalists in the 17th cent., then to those who upheld James II's claim to the throne, later to supporters of the Established Church: compare Whig