What does "backslider" mean?

A recidivist; one who backslides, especially in a religious sense; an apostate.

What is a synonym for "backslider"?

Common synonyms include: apostate, atheist, bad lot, black sheep, collaborator, convert.

Backslider

//ˈbækslaɪdɚ// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
A recidivist; one who backslides, especially in a religious sense; an apostate.
"She married him thinking to change his ways, and for a while he got religion, but he was ever a backslider; she soon began finding bottles stashed about the house."
2
someone who lapses into previous undesirable patterns of behavior wordnet
3
One who will not do his work or shoulder his responsibilities. Ireland

Synonyms

All synonyms

apostate atheist bad lot black sheep collaborator convert

Example

More examples

"She married him thinking to change his ways, and for a while he got religion, but he was ever a backslider; she soon began finding bottles stashed about the house."

Etymology

From backslide + -er.

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