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The Usage Panel is a group of nearly 200 prominent scholars, creative writers, journalists, diplomats, and others in occupations requiring mastery of language. Annual surveys have gauged the acceptability of particular usages and grammatical constructions.
Characterized by reaction, especially opposition to progress or liberalism; extremely conservative:The principal is very reactionary; she wants the school to stay the way it has been for the last 50 years.
n.pl.re·ac·tion·ar·ies
An opponent of progress or liberalism; an extreme conservative.
Usage Note: Reactionary means "characterized by reaction, especially opposition to progress or liberalism; extremely conservative." Sometimes reactionary is used to mean "tending to overreact; very reactive," but that sense is widely viewed as a mistake. In 2012, 86 percent of the Usage Panel found the sentence The principal is very reactionary; she responds to every little crisis by calling an emergency meeting to be unacceptable.
Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:
The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.