Brewer's: Radical

An ultra-Liberal, verging on republican opinions. The term was first applied as a party name in 1818 to Henry Hunt, Major Cartwright, and others of the same clique, who wished to introduce radical reform in the representative system, and not merely to disfranchise and enfranchise a borough or two. Lord Bolingbroke, in his Discourses on Parties, says, “Such a remedy might have wrought a radical cure of the evil that threatens our constitution.”

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Related Content