apologist

From apology +‎ -ist, from French apologiste.

• IPA^(key): /əˈpɒl.ə.d͡ʒɪst/

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apologist (plural apologists)

1. (loosely) One who makes an apology.
   1. (usually) One who speaks or writes in defense of a faith, a cause, or an institution.
      • 1949, F. A. Hayek, “The Intellectuals and Socialism”, in University of Chicago Law Review, volume 16, number 3, Chicago: University of Chicago, →DOI, page 430:

        […] he will appear to many of the more speculatively minded intellectuals merely as a timid apologist of things as they are; at the same time he will be dismissed by the men of affairs as an impractical theorist.

      • 2019 October 15, Aleksandar Hemon, “‘The Bob Dylan of Genocide Apologists’”, in The New York Times‎^[1], archived from the original on 5 April 2020:

        A genocide denier is an apologist for the next genocide. […] Mr. Handke is the Bob Dylan of genocide apologists.

   2. (uncommon) Synonym of apologizer.

• “apologist”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Borrowed from French apologiste.

apologist m (plural apologiști)

1. apologist