zealot

He was an anti-authority zealot, made recently rich, with an axe to grind.

From Slate ● Mar. 25, 2026

If you were trying to turn a lay fan into a Caitlin Clark zealot, I don’t know that Saturday’s game would have been the first one you showed them.

From Seattle Times ● Mar. 23, 2024

Mr. Rowe long plotted his escape even as he portrayed himself to peers as a zealot of Kim’s rule.

From Washington Post ● Jan. 6, 2023

In the decade after the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish zealot, Rabbi Medan worked on a covenant for coexistence between religious and secular Jews in Israel.

From New York Times ● Nov. 13, 2022

Ishmael’s grandfather had been a Highland Presbyterian, his grandmother an Irish zealot from the bogs above Lough Ree; they met in Seattle five years before the Great Fire, wed, and raised six sons.

From "Snow Falling on Cedars: A Novel" by David Guterson

For TV producers, it's long been tempting to invite two self-righteous zealots into a studio to bellow at each other.

From BBC ● Mar. 7, 2026

The U.S. built the post-war world around rules—not because we are zealots about law, but because rules have helped us.

From Barron's ● Jan. 5, 2026

Still, the ubiquity, complexity and accountability tax filing requires make it a good litmus test of the AI zealots and doomsayers’ beliefs.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 21, 2025

After making his way through a Romanian town filled with zealots warning Thomas of Orlok’s corruption, he finds himself alone, deep in the snowy woods.

From Salon ● Dec. 24, 2024

All men of talent, whether they be men of feeling or not; whether they be zealots, or aspirants, or despots—provided only they be sincere—have their sublime moments, when they subdue and rule.

From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë