also luddite, 1811, the name taken by an organized band of weavers in Midlands and northern England who for about 5 years thereafter destroyed machinery, for fear it would deprive them of work. Supposedly they got it from Ned Ludd, a Leicestershire worker who in 1779 had smashed two machines in a rage, but that story first was told in 1847. Applied by 1961 to modern spurners of automation and technology. As an adjective from 1812.