Abettor

//əˈbɛtə// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    One that abets an offender; one that incites; instigates; encourages.

    "Thou foul abettor! thou notorious bawd! Thou plantest scandal and displacest laud:"

  2. 2
    one who helps or encourages or incites another wordnet
  3. 3
    A supporter or advocate.

    "[…] when he recollected that, being there as an assistant, he actually seemed—no matter what unhappy train of circumstances had brought him to that pass—to be the aider and abettor of a system which filled him with honest disgust and indignation, he loathed himself […]"

Synonyms

All synonyms
abetteraccessoryaccessoryaccompliceaccompliceaccomplice in crime

Example

More examples

"The Indian government has warned Facebook it will treat the company as a legal abettor to violence if it does not develop tools to better combat the spread of false information."

Etymology

From Middle English abettour, from Anglo-Norman abettour, from Old French abeter + -our (“-or”). See abet.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.