dissenter (dis enter)

1. One who di ents; one who differs in opinion, or one who declares his disagreement. 'Twill be needle for me to treat as a casuist, to convince the di enters from this doctrine. W. Montague , Devoute E ays (1654), iii. 104. Specifically-2. Eccles., one who refuses to accept the authority or doctrines, or conform to the ritual or usages, of an established church; a nonconformist: specifically applied in England to those who, while they agree with the Church of England (which is Episcopal) in many e ential doctrines, differ from it on questions of church government, relation to the state, and rites and ceremonies. The word appears to have come into use in the seventeenth century as synonymous with nonconformist, although its equivalent may be said to have existed in Poland in the name di ident, a term which first appears in the acts of the Warsaw Confederation of 1573, and there denotes a Polish Protestant, in contradistinction to a member of the established Catholic Church. The name di enter is not ordinarily given to the Episcopalians in Scotland, though they di ent from the Established Church of Scotland, which is Presbyterian. Di enters' Chapels Act Mare Lord Lyndhurst's under act . Di enters' Fiages Act, an English statute of 1836 c. 85), authorizing marriages between persons who are not identified with the Church of England according to the rites of their own church. =Syn. 2. Nonconformist, etc. See heretic.