A name given to certain persons who protested against a law made by the Emperor Charles V and his Diet in 1529. The name is commonly applied to what are known as "Evangelical Denominations," as opposed to Romanism. But as so many Heretics, Atheists, Free-thinkers and Nothingarians are included under the name Protestant, the word is going out of use among Church-people, having lost much of its proper meaning.