meaning - Advocate versus Partisan

Advocate and Partisan are two of the most ambiguous words I have ever come across. I have been researching these two words for almost three hours trying to figure out if they're the same or different. Driving me nuts!

Both are used interchangeably as having the same meaning

Both are used separately as having different meaning

Partisan is often used as an adjective for Advocate

Both are defined in the dictionary as being a supporter of a group

Question: What is the difference between Partisan and Advocate?

If they are the same, then why do people say "partisan advocate"?

If they are different, then why are they not listed as synonym/antonym in a thesaurus?

If one supports the other, then why are both defined as an advocate for a group?

How is it that a partisan supporting a group is biased while advocating for a group is not?

Answer

There’s no such thing as perfect synonymy. Like most of what we call ‘synonyms’, these two words have a broad area of meaning in common, but vary at their edges, like two circles which overlap but do not coincide.

• partisan means a zealous supporter of a faction or party. From the beginning, partisan had negative connotations: it implied blind and unthinking adherence to one’s faction’s positions. Moreover, when the word first came into English, factions were not the kinder, gentler political parties they are today; they were often violent and occasionally insurrectionary gangs; and partisan today still carries a suggestion of at least rhetorical violence.




• advocate means a zealous supporter of a cause … Note that there’s nothing in that that’s really different from ‘zealous supporter of a faction’; but it sounds different. When advocate first came into English it meant a ‘lawyer’, somebody who argued your cause before a court of justice; and a lawyer as we all know is a gentleman of great learning and professional probity, quite different from a street thug. To this day, advocate is used primarily for one who is an eloquent spokesman for a cause rather than a fighter for a cause.

What it boils down to (ignoring the areas where these words have developed quite different meanings) is that My cause is represented by a rational, principled, passionately engaged advocate, while Your faction relies on vicious and ignorant partisans.