FOLLOWER

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does follower mean? 

• FOLLOWER (noun)
  The noun FOLLOWER has 2 senses:

1. a person who accepts the leadership of another

2. someone who travels behind or pursues another

  Familiarity information: FOLLOWER used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FOLLOWER (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A person who accepts the leadership of another

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("follower" is a kind of...):

individual; mortal; person; somebody; someone; soul (a human being)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "follower"):

planet; satellite (a person who follows or serves another)

Machiavellian (a follower of Machiavelli's principles)

Mendelian (a follower of Mendelism)

Mohammedan; Muhammadan; Muhammedan (a follower of Mohammed)

myrmidon (a follower who carries out orders without question)

Nestorian (a follower of Nestorius)

Newtonian (a follower of Isaac Newton)

regular (a dependable follower (especially in party politics))

respecter (a person who respects someone or something; usually used in the negative)

Cartesian (a follower of Cartesian thought)

sheep (a docile and vulnerable person who would rather follow than make an independent decision)

Skinnerian (a follower of the theories or methods of B. F. Skinner)

Stalinist (a follower of Stalin and Stalinism)

submitter (someone who yields to the will of another person or force)

hanger-on; tagalong (someone who persistently (and annoyingly) follows along)

feudatory; liege; liege subject; liegeman; vassal (a person holding a fief; a person who owes allegiance and service to a feudal lord)

Wagnerian (a follower of the theories or an admirer of the music of Richard Wagner)

Lamarckian (a believer in Lamarckism)

camp follower (a follower who is not a member of an ingroup)

cultist (a member of a religious cult)

cultist (a member of an unorthodox cult who generally lives outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader)

adherent; disciple (someone who believes and helps to spread the doctrine of another)

buff; devotee; fan; lover (an ardent follower and admirer)

adulator; flatterer (a person who uses flattery)

flunkey; flunky; stooge; yes-man (a person of unquestioning obedience)

Freudian (a person who follows the basic theories or practices of Sigmund Freud)

Hegelian (a follower of the thought of Hegel)

inferior (one of lesser rank or station or quality)

Jacksonian (a follower of Andrew Jackson or his ideas)

janissary (a loyal supporter)

Jeffersonian (a follower of Thomas Jefferson or his ideas and principles)

Jungian (a follower or advocate of Carl Jung's theories)

Keynesian (a follower of the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes)

leech; parasite; sponge; sponger (a follower who hangs around a host (without benefit to the host) in hope of gain or advantage)

Antonym:

leader (a person who rules or guides or inspires others)

Derivation:

follow (accept and follow the leadership or command or guidance of)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Someone who travels behind or pursues another

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("follower" is a kind of...):

traveler; traveller (a person who changes location)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "follower"):

chaser; pursuer (a person who is pursuing and trying to overtake or capture)

shadow (an inseparable companion)

shadow; shadower; tail (a spy employed to follow someone and report their movements)

Derivation:

follow (to travel behind, go after, come after)

follow (follow in or as if in pursuit)

 Context examples 

Maeterlinck's followers rallied around the standard of mysticism.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

If you are active in social media, watch your followers grow, too.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

If you've any followers—housebreakers or such like—anywhere near, you may tell them we are not by ourselves in the house; we have a gentleman, and dogs, and guns.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

But there was no sign of reawakening courage in his followers, rather, indeed, of growing terror at the irreverence of his words.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

“I have heard that Wicliff hath many followers in Norwich,” answered Alleyne.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

As Peggotty was wont to tell me, long ago, the followers of my father to the same grave were made ready in the same room.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

She instructed her daughter in the tenets of her religion and taught her to aspire to higher powers of intellect and an independence of spirit forbidden to the female followers of Muhammad.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

When he came to the outskirts of the forest, he said to his followers: “Just stay waiting here, I alone will soon finish off the giants.”

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

The old physicians took account of things which their followers do not accept, and the Professor is searching for witch and demon cures which may be useful to us later.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

It is part of the settled order of Nature that such a girl should have followers, said Holmes, he pulled at his meditative pipe, but for choice not on bicycles in lonely country roads.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)