English▸ noun
1 a person who attacks or criticizes cherished beliefs or institutions:
he was one of music's true iconoclasts.
2 a destroyer of images used in religious worship:
the paintings were destroyed by the iconoclasts.
▪ historical a supporter of the 8th- and 9th-century movement in the Byzantine Church which sought to abolish the veneration of icons and other religious images:
the reigning emperor is a fanatical iconoclast who sees the veneration of icons as idolatry.
▪ historical a Puritan of the 16th or 17th century:
Puritan iconoclasts smashed the carved figures depicting the life of Mary.
– ORIGIN mid 17th century (in iconoclast (sense 2 of the noun)): via medieval Latin from ecclesiastical Greek eikonoklastēs, from eikōn ‘likeness’ + klan ‘to break’.