crusader

noun

cru·​sad·​er krü-ˈsā-dər 

plural crusaders

: one who engages in a crusade: such as

a

Crusader : a person who participated in any of the military expeditions undertaken by Christian powers in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries to win the Holy Land from the Muslims

This is religion as the Crusaders knew it: a battle to the death for souls that if not saved will be forever lost.

—Benjamin R. Barber

Cleanliness improved during the Middle Ages—particularly after the Crusaders imported the Turkish bath.

—Winifred Gallagher

Then the church was looted by the Christian crusaders from the West, who converted it for fifty-seven years to the Roman Catholic ritual.

—Mario Salvadori

b

: a person who makes an impassioned and sustained effort to bring about social or political change

human rights crusaders

an anti-government crusader

Black women lawyers early on were in the forefront of the civil rights struggle. Many women attorneys were crusaders for the poor and needy …

—Rita E. Hauser

Synonyms

• fanatic
• ideologue
• idealogue
• militant
• partisan
• partizan
• red hot
• true believer
• zealot

Examples of crusader in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Many colorful figures had walk-on roles in the story, from the feminists Victoria Woodhull and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to the manic Civil War major general Benjamin Butler and the anti-pornography crusader Anthony Comstock. —Louis Menand, The New Yorker, 14 Apr. 2024

Fonda then introduced environmental crusaders Nalleli Cobo, Dr. Lorenzo Gonzalez, Chris Lehman, and an impassioned Teigen and Wendy Schmidt — the latter of whom contributed $5 million with her husband, Eric. —Merle Ginsberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 10 Apr. 2024

The movement to stop it has been growing for more than two years and has catalyzed different wings of the progressive left — environmentalists, social-justice crusaders, police abolitionists — into a loosely unified front. —David Peisner, Rolling Stone, 24 Mar. 2024

Shasta County voters have booted from office a key figure in the county’s hard-right shift, even as the fate of a second far-right crusader on the powerful Board of Supervisors still hangs in the balance. —Hailey Branson-Potts, Los Angeles Times, 16 Mar. 2024

In 2020, anti-corruption crusader and lawyer Navalny, 47, was poisoned with a deadly nerve agent Novichok. —Gil Kaufman, Billboard, 20 Feb. 2024

Walton already showed signs of turning activist while West was far from a social crusader, a role on the Lakers that belonged to forward Elgin Baylor, who had greater self-confidence and a life of growing up black in inner-city Washington. —Scott Howard-Cooper., Los Angeles Times, 3 Mar. 2024

Playing the Batman role was Johnson’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr., who finished 11th and whose No. 88 Chevy was decked out in the caped crusader’s décor. —David Scott, Charlotte Observer, 30 Jan. 2024

But rather than accept victory, many anti-smoking crusaders now embrace incoherent and seemingly contradictory positions regarding tobacco-harm reduction. —Jeffrey A. Singer, National Review, 1 Feb. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1742, in the meaning defined above