revanchist
- noun
- /rɪˈvænʃɪst/
- Formal
- Many revanchists in the parliament are advocating for aggressive policies to recover their nation's former glory.
Examples
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A revanchist Cardenas, elected with a third of the vote, who insists on hewing to radical policies, would court a fate similar to Chile's Salvador Allende, who was also elected with a weak mandate and was unable to form stable coalitions with mainstream parties.
Academic text (1999) -
Once that human hand lifts, however, a revanchist biota soon blossoms.
Academic text (2008) -
His policies were disastrous and revanchist, but the guy had a knack for putting honey in the average American's ears.
Blog text (31) -
And that's why we need him to fight the Repubs, that zombie party of Reaganite revanchists who would take us off a far worse cliff than this phony one with which they want to hold him and us hostage.
Blog text (25) -
During its half-century of operation, the UNRWA has thus perpetuated a Palestinian refugee nation, preserving its resentments in as fresh a condition as they were in 1948 and keeping the first bloom of revanchist emotion intact.
Academic text (1999) -
The politician is a well-known revanchist who aims to reclaim the land lost during the last war.
-
During the elections, the revanchist faction campaigned vigorously to regain control of the disputed territory.
Synonyms
A person who wants their country to take back land it once owned
Surface Forms
Morphology
revanchist = revanch + ist
Although the suffix '-ist' marks an agent, the base 'revanch' is not a recognizable English root for most learners, so the sense 'person who seeks to regain territory/status' is not transparently predictable from components.
Etymology
Revanchist comes from the French word revanche, 'revenge' or 'taking back', and is related to the English word revenge. A revanchist is a person who wants to get back lost land or status, often willing to use force.