luddite

Noun capitalized: Luddite

Luddite (plural Luddites)

1. (historical) Any of a group of early-19th-century English textile workers who destroyed machinery because it would harm their livelihood.
   • For instance, the Luddites, so maligned as technology-fearing machine breakers, were a highly sophisticated insurrectionary movement, composed of small, well-disciplined groups who used disguises and watchwords, raised funds and gathered arms, terrorized their opponents, and carried out...2022, R. F. Kuang, Babel, HarperVoyager, page 482 (footnote)
2. (broadly, derogatory, often) Someone who opposes technological change.
   • [Benjamin Friedman] added, "How long does it take the Luddites to be wrong — a few years, a decade, a couple of decades?" Perhaps just as important, what happens to the workers who happen to be living during a time when the Luddite argument has some truth to it?2012 October 24, David Leonhardt, “Standard of Living Is in the Shadows as Election Issue”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   Synonyms:

   neo-Luddite

3. (broadly, informal) One who lives among nature, forsaking technology.