baptist

baptist — noun

1. someone who belongs to a branch of the Christian Protestant church whose followe

1.nounC1
Definition

someone who belongs to a branch of the Christian Protestant church whose followers choose to be baptized as adults, by being placed fully under water, once they understand what the ceremony means to them.

Example

Beatriz grew up as a Baptist in a small town in Georgia and was baptized at fourteen.

noun + as a Baptist, common with grow up / raised

The Baptists in our village built a new red-brick chapel beside the river.

plural Baptists referring to the community

Common collocations
  • devout Baptist
  • lifelong Baptist
  • Southern Baptist
  • raised a Baptist
  • Baptist minister
  • Baptist church
  • Baptist congregation
Synonyms
  • Anabaptist

    historical 16th-century group that also rejected infant baptism; not interchangeable with modern Baptists.

  • Protestant

    broader category covering many non-Catholic Christian groups, of which Baptists are one branch.

  • evangelical

    describes the wider movement Baptists belong to, focused on personal faith and the Bible; not the same as denominational membership.

Antonyms
  • paedobaptist

    technical term for a Christian who supports baptizing infants — the opposite practice.

Grammar Patterns

a Baptist

Baptist + noun (as modifier: Baptist church, Baptist minister)

Usage Note

Almost always written with a capital B when it refers to a member of the Christian denomination; the lowercase form is rare and largely confined to older or non-religious writing. Often functions attributively before another noun: a Baptist church, a Baptist preacher, the Baptist tradition.

Common Mistakes

My uncle is a baptist priest.
My uncle is a Baptist minister.
Baptist churches use the title 'minister' or 'pastor', not 'priest'; the word should also be capitalized.
She baptisted her son last Sunday.
She had her son baptized last Sunday.
'Baptist' is a noun for a person, not a verb; the verb form is 'baptize'.

Word family

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

All four words label Christians who stand outside the Roman Catholic Church, but they sit at different levels. Protestant is the widest term and covers any Christian whose tradition broke from Rome at or after the Reformation, including Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists and Baptists. Evangelical is a cross-denominational label for Protestants who stress personal conversion, the authority of the Bible and active sharing of their faith; many but not all Baptists describe themselves this way. Baptist is narrower still: a member of a specific family of churches that practise baptism by full immersion of people old enough to choose it. Anabaptist refers to a separate, mainly historical group from 16th-century Europe — the Mennonites and Amish are their modern descendants — and should not be used as a synonym for today's Baptists. So you might say, 'She is a Protestant, more specifically an evangelical Baptist,' but never 'an Anabaptist Baptist.'

Baptist ↗Protestant ↗evangelical ↗Anabaptist

Common collocations

Nouns

Phrases

  • Southern Baptist
  • Baptist Union
  • Baptist World Alliance
  • raised a Baptist

Prepositions

  • of (a member of the Baptist church)

Etymology

GreekLate LatinOld FrenchMiddle English

The word came into English in the late 1300s through Old French 'baptiste', taken from Late Latin 'baptista' and originally from Greek 'baptistēs', meaning 'one who dips' or 'one who baptizes'. It was first used as a title for John the Baptist in the New Testament. From the early 1600s, English speakers began applying it to members of newly formed Protestant groups in England and the Netherlands who rejected the baptism of babies and insisted that only believing adults should be baptized by being placed fully under water. The capitalized denominational sense has been the dominant meaning ever since.