Whig / (h)wig/ hist. • n. 1. a member of the British reforming and constitutional party that sought the supremacy of Parliament and was eventually succeeded in the 19th century by the Liberal Party.2. an American colonist who supported the American Revolution. ∎  a member of an American political party in the 19th century, succeeded by the Republicans.3. a 17th-century Scottish Presbyterian.4. [as adj.] denoting a historian who interprets history as the continuing and inevitable victory of progress over reaction.DERIVATIVES: Whig·ger·y / -ərē/ n.Whig·gish adj.Whig·gism / -ˌizəm/ n.

Whig originally, an adherent of the Presbyterian cause in Scotland in the 17th century; the name is probably a shortening of Scots Whiggamore. At the end of the 17th century, Whig designated a person who opposed the succession of the Catholic James II to the crown; an exclusioner.

From the early 18th century, Whig was used for a member of the British reforming and constitutional party that after 1688 sought the supremacy of Parliament and was eventually succeeded in the 19th century by the Liberal Party. The name was further applied, again in the early 18th century, to an American colonist who supported the American Revolution.
Whig historian a historian who interprets history as the continuing and inevitable victory of progress over reaction; the term is first recorded in George Bernard Shaw's preface to St Joan (1924).

Whig (w-) †yokel; adherent of the Presbyterian cause in Scotland (esp. one of the rebellious covenanters who marched on Edinburgh in 1648); exclusioner (opposing succession of James, duke of York) XVII; from 1689, one of the two great political parties in England. prob. shortening of Sc. whiggamaire, -mer, wiggomer (used in the second sense, the expedition being called ‘the whiggamore raid’), f. whig drive + mere MARE.