Optant

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A person who lives in a region undergoing a change of sovereignty and thus may choose between retaining their old citizenship or opting for the citizenship of the new sovereignty.

    "According to one authority, nearly 40,000 of the Sleswick Danes had become 'optants'—that is, had taken the 'option' of Danish nationality—or had emigrated, by the end of 1880."

  2. 2
    A person who opts into, out of, or for something.

Synonyms

All synonyms
electorate

Example

More examples

"According to one authority, nearly 40,000 of the Sleswick Danes had become 'optants'—that is, had taken the 'option' of Danish nationality—or had emigrated, by the end of 1880."

Etymology

Partly (sense 1) borrowed from German Optant or Danish optant (both attested since 1907), partly from opt + ant.

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