"optant" meaning in English

See optant in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: optants [plural]
Etymology: Partly (sense 1) borrowed from German Optant or Danish optant (both attested since 1907), partly from opt + ant. Etymology templates: {{bor+|en|de|Optant|nocap=1}} borrowed from German Optant, {{bor|en|da|optant}} Danish optant, {{af|en|opt|ant}} opt + ant Head templates: {{en-noun}} optant (plural optants)
  1. A person who lives in a region undergoing a change of sovereignty and thus may choose between retaining their old citizenship or opting for the citizenship of the new sovereignty.
    Sense id: en-optant-en-noun-yucYyIrL Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 5 entries, Pages with entries, People Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 70 30 Disambiguation of Pages with 5 entries: 76 24 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 75 25 Disambiguation of People: 47 53
  2. A person who opts into, out of, or for something.
    Sense id: en-optant-en-noun-nHUzL0Ap Categories (other): People Disambiguation of People: 47 53

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "de",
        "3": "Optant",
        "nocap": "1"
      },
      "expansion": "borrowed from German Optant",
      "name": "bor+"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "da",
        "3": "optant"
      },
      "expansion": "Danish optant",
      "name": "bor"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "opt",
        "3": "ant"
      },
      "expansion": "opt + ant",
      "name": "af"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Partly (sense 1) borrowed from German Optant or Danish optant (both attested since 1907), partly from opt + ant.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "optants",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "optant (plural optants)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "attestations": [
        {
          "date": "from 1914",
          "references": []
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "70 30",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "76 24",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 5 entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "75 25",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "47 53",
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "People",
          "orig": "en:People",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              75,
              83
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1914, W. R. Prior, Oxford Pamphlets: North Sleswick under Prussian Rule, London: Oxford University Press, page 9:",
          "text": "According to one authority, nearly 40,000 of the Sleswick Danes had become 'optants'—that is, had taken the 'option' of Danish nationality—or had emigrated, by the end of 1880.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A person who lives in a region undergoing a change of sovereignty and thus may choose between retaining their old citizenship or opting for the citizenship of the new sovereignty."
      ],
      "id": "en-optant-en-noun-yucYyIrL",
      "links": [
        [
          "sovereignty",
          "sovereignty"
        ],
        [
          "citizenship",
          "citizenship"
        ],
        [
          "opt",
          "opt"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "attestations": [
        {
          "date": "from 1943",
          "references": []
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "47 53",
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "People",
          "orig": "en:People",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A person who opts into, out of, or for something."
      ],
      "id": "en-optant-en-noun-nHUzL0Ap",
      "links": [
        [
          "opt",
          "opt"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "optant"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English compound terms",
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English nouns",
    "English terms borrowed from Danish",
    "English terms borrowed from German",
    "English terms derived from Danish",
    "English terms derived from German",
    "Pages with 5 entries",
    "Pages with entries",
    "en:People"
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "de",
        "3": "Optant",
        "nocap": "1"
      },
      "expansion": "borrowed from German Optant",
      "name": "bor+"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "da",
        "3": "optant"
      },
      "expansion": "Danish optant",
      "name": "bor"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "opt",
        "3": "ant"
      },
      "expansion": "opt + ant",
      "name": "af"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Partly (sense 1) borrowed from German Optant or Danish optant (both attested since 1907), partly from opt + ant.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "optants",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "optant (plural optants)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "attestations": [
        {
          "date": "from 1914",
          "references": []
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              75,
              83
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1914, W. R. Prior, Oxford Pamphlets: North Sleswick under Prussian Rule, London: Oxford University Press, page 9:",
          "text": "According to one authority, nearly 40,000 of the Sleswick Danes had become 'optants'—that is, had taken the 'option' of Danish nationality—or had emigrated, by the end of 1880.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A person who lives in a region undergoing a change of sovereignty and thus may choose between retaining their old citizenship or opting for the citizenship of the new sovereignty."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "sovereignty",
          "sovereignty"
        ],
        [
          "citizenship",
          "citizenship"
        ],
        [
          "opt",
          "opt"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "attestations": [
        {
          "date": "from 1943",
          "references": []
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A person who opts into, out of, or for something."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "opt",
          "opt"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "optant"
}

Download raw JSONL data for optant meaning in English (1.9kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-02-14 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-02-01 using wiktextract (f492ef9 and 59dc20b). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.