Word.ws English Dictionary

protectionist

protectionist adjective: of or pertaining to protectionism, or an advocate thereof.

Adjective

protectionist (comparative more protectionist, superlative most protectionist)

  1. Of or pertaining to protectionism, or an advocate thereof.
    • This is because most member countries still hold a very much protectionist stance when it comes to the service sector.2008, International Transport Forum, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, SourceOECD (Online service), 17th International ITF/OECD Symposium on Transport Economics and Policy...
    • The "national security" grounds were gauzy at best; the 232 tariffs were classically protectionist.2020 June 23, John Bolton, The Room Where It Happened, →ISBN, page 185

Noun

protectionist (plural protectionists)

  1. Someone who believes in protecting domestic producers by impeding or limiting the importation of foreign goods and services via actions taken by government.
    • It also would cut deeply into the trans-Atlantic alliance at the worst possible time by giving anti-American, anti-capitalist nationalists and protectionists in Europe a platform to thrive. Anti-American sentiment will grow, and Europe risks a retreat to protectionism. Those of us who make the case...2019 February 21, Guy Verhofstadt, “A Trump trade war with Europe would hurt the trans-Atlantic relationship”, in CNN
    • Vance is now a key messenger for Trump’s economic agenda as the administration pursues sweeping new protectionists policies announced on what they deemed “Liberation Day.”2025 April 4, Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck, “‘The policy may very well fail’: JD Vance doubted Trump’s first-term trade policies, previously bashed tariffs”, in CNN, archived from the original on 14...
  2. A linguistic purist.

Synonyms of protectionist

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of protectionist

Forms of protectionist

Adjective
comparativemore protectionist
superlativemost protectionist
Noun
pluralprotectionists

Origin of protectionist

Borrowed from French protectionniste, equivalent to protection + -ist.

Words formed from protectionist

Questions about protectionist

What does protectionist mean?
Protectionist means of or pertaining to protectionism, or an advocate thereof.
What part of speech is protectionist?
Protectionist can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near protectionist in the dictionary

  1. protection rackets
  2. protectional
  3. protectionary
  4. protectionism
  5. protectionisms
  6. protectionist
  7. protectionistic
  8. protectionists
  9. protectionless
  10. protections
  11. protective

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: protectionist (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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