a member of a radical 16th-cent. sect of the Reformation originating in Switzerland, often persecuted because they opposed the taking of oaths, infant baptism, military service, and the holding of public office
A member of a radical movement of the 16th-century Reformation that viewed baptism solely as an external witness to a believer's conscious profession of faith, rejected infant baptism, and believed in the separation of church from state, in the shunning of nonbelievers, and in simplicity of life.