Learn English – Advocate versus Partisan

differencesmeaning

Advocate and Partisan are two of the most ambiguous words I have ever come across. I have been researching these two words for almost three hours trying to figure out if they're the same or different. Driving me nuts!

  • Both are used interchangeably as having the same meaning
  • Both are used separately as having different meaning
  • Partisan is often used as an adjective for Advocate
  • Both are defined in the dictionary as being a supporter of a group

    Question: What is the difference between Partisan and Advocate?

  • If they are the same, then why do people say "partisan advocate"?
  • If they are different, then why are they not listed as synonym/antonym in a thesaurus?
  • If one supports the other, then why are both defined as an advocate for a group?
  • How is it that a partisan supporting a group is biased while advocating for a group is not?

    • Best Answer

    There’s no such thing as perfect synonymy. Like most of what we call ‘synonyms’, these two words have a broad area of meaning in common, but vary at their edges, like two circles which overlap but do not coincide.

    • partisan means a zealous supporter of a faction or party. From the beginning, partisan had negative connotations: it implied blind and unthinking adherence to one’s faction’s positions. Moreover, when the word first came into English, factions were not the kinder, gentler political parties they are today; they were often violent and occasionally insurrectionary gangs; and partisan today still carries a suggestion of at least rhetorical violence.

    • advocate means a zealous supporter of a cause … Note that there’s nothing in that that’s really different from ‘zealous supporter of a faction’; but it sounds different. When advocate first came into English it meant a ‘lawyer’, somebody who argued your cause before a court of justice; and a lawyer as we all know is a gentleman of great learning and professional probity, quite different from a street thug. To this day, advocate is used primarily for one who is an eloquent spokesman for a cause rather than a fighter for a cause.

    What it boils down to (ignoring the areas where these words have developed quite different meanings) is that My cause is represented by a rational, principled, passionately engaged advocate, while Your faction relies on vicious and ignorant partisans.

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