Protestant

·adj Making a protest; protesting.

II. Protestant ·adj Of or pertaining to the faith and practice of those Christians who reject the authority of the Roman Catholic Church; as, Protestant writers.

III. Protestant ·v One who protests;

— originally applied to those who adhered to Luther, and protested against, or made a solemn declaration of dissent from, a decree of the Emperor Charles V. and the Diet of Spires, in 1529, against the Reformers, and appealed to a general council;

— now used in a popular sense to designate any Christian who does not belong to the Roman Catholic or the Greek Church.