- follower
- follower, adherent, disciple, sectary, partisan, henchman, satellite are comparable when denoting one who attaches himself to another.Follower is the inclusive term, denoting a person who attaches himself to the person or opinions of another{
the followers of Jesus
}{followers of Karl Marx
}{they are creatures of the Devil, vowed to idolatry, and followers of Mithras— Nevil Shute
}Its synonyms divide themselves into two groups, the first three designating a follower through choice or conviction and the last three a follower in whom personal devotion overshadows or eclipses the critical faculty.Adherent connotes closer and more persistent attachment than follower; it may be used without any implication of the personality of the teacher or leader{a doctrine that gained many adherents
}{the candidate lost many adherents when he announced his views on reform
}{ad-herents to the Communist party— Conant
}Disciple typically presupposes a master or teacher and implies personal, often devoted, adherence to his views or doctrines{though ... an enthusiastic student of Fourier ... he was never a mere disciple—the individualistic stamp was too strong— Rosenzweig
}but it may also imply similar adherence to a school of thought or governing principle{there is no angler, not even the most aesthetic disciple of the dry fly— Alexander Mac Donald
}{during the war years the disciples of the extreme Left sounded very much like the worst of the Negro-hating Southerners— Current Biog.
}Sectary (see also HERETIC) usually implies the acceptance of the doctrines of a teacher or body{sectaries of Mohammed
}{there dwelt, unchanged, the spirit of the Puritans and the Friends, the stiff-necked sectaries of Cromwell's army— Brooks
}{Aristotle . . . has suffered from the adherence of persons who must be regarded less as his disciples than as his sectaries— T. S. Eliot
}Partisan suggests such devotion to the person or opinions of another or to a party, a creed, or a school of thought that there is incapacity for seeing from any other point of view. It often, therefore, connotes bigotry or prejudice{Laura was always a passionate partisan of her young brother— Mary Austin
}{a few partisans argued for him— Mencken
}Henchman is commonly applied to a subservient follower of a political leader or boss; in extended use it connotes abject submission to the will of a dominating and, usually, unscrupulous leader or group{the cat's-paw of corrupt functionaries and the henchman of ambitious humbugs— Shaw
}Satellite, more than any of the others, suggests devotion to the person of the leader and constant obsequious attendance on him{Boswell was . . . made happy by an introduction to Johnson, of whom he became the obsequious satellite— Irving
}Antonyms: leader
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
