crusader

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a participant in one of the medieval Christian military expeditions known as the Crusades

   The crusader travelled east with an army bound for the Holy Land.

2. 2
   noun

   a person who campaigns energetically for a political, social, or moral cause

   The journalist became a crusader against unsafe working conditions.

Formed from crusade + -er. Crusade comes through French and Spanish from Medieval Latin cruciata, 'marked with a cross,' because participants in the medieval expeditions wore the cross as their emblem. The word later broadened to an energetic campaigner for any cause.

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