Tories emerged to uphold the legitimist rights of James, Duke of York to succeed his brother Charles II to the throne. James II was a Catholic, while the state institutions had broken from the Catholic Church—this was an issue for the Exclusion Bill supporting Whigs, the political heirs to the nonconformist Roundheads and Covenanters. There were two Tory ministries under James II; the first led by Lord Rochester, the second by Lord Belasyse. Some were later involved in his usurpation with the Whigs, which they saw as defending the Anglican Church. Tory sympathy for the Stuarts ran deep however and some supported Jacobitism, which saw them isolated by the Hanoverians until Lord Bute's ministry under George III.

Conservatism emerged by the end of the 18th century—which synthesised moderate Whig positions and some of the old Tory values to create a new political ideology, in opposition to the French Revolution. The likes of Edmund Burke and William Pitt the Younger led the way in this. Due to this faction eventually leading to the formation of the Conservative Party, members of that party are colloquially referred to as Tories, even if they are not traditionalists. Actual adherents to traditional Toryism in contemporary times tend to be referred to as High Tories to avoid confusion.

The word derives from the Middle Irish word tóraidhe; modern Irish tóraí: outlaw, robber, from the Irish word tóir, meaning "pursuit", since outlaws were "pursued men". It was originally used to refer to an Irish outlaw and later applied to Confederates or Royalists in arms. The term was thus originally a term of abuse, "an Irish rebel", before being adopted as a political label in the same way as Whig.

There is no reasonable authority for the belief that the term derives from Tory Island in the north west of Ireland and was intended to imply "an Irish peasant".

Historically, the term Tory has been applied in various ways to supporters of the British monarchy. The term was initially applied in Ireland to the isolated bands of guerrillas resisting Oliver Cromwell's nine-month 1649–1650 campaign in Ireland, who were allied with Royalists through treaty with the Parliament of Confederate Ireland, signed at Kilkenny in January 1649; and later to dispossessed Catholics in Ulster following the Restoration .

During the Exclusion Bill Crisis the word Tory was applied in England as a nickname to opponents of the bill. The word had connotations of Papist and outlaw derived from its previous use in Ireland.

English Tories from the time of the Glorious Revolution up until the Reform Bill of 1832 were characterized by strong monarchist tendencies, support of the Church of England, and hostility to reform, while the Tory Party was an actual organization which held power intermittently throughout the same period. The term remains in occasional use to refer to the modern Conservatives that evolved from this party.

The term was used to designate the pre-Confederation British ruling classes of Upper Canada and Lower Canada, known as the Family Compact and the Château Clique, an elite within the governing classes, and often members within a section of society known as the United Empire Loyalists.

In post-Confederation Canada the terms "Red Tory" and "Blue Tory" have long been used to describe the two wings of the Conservative and previously the Progressive Conservative (PC) parties. The diadic tensions originally arose out of the 1854 political union of British-Canadian Tories, French-Canadian traditionalists, and the monarchist and loyalist leaning sections of the emerging commercial classes at the time - many of whom were uncomfortable with the pro-American and annexationist tendencies within the liberal Grits. Tory strength and prominence in the political culture was a feature of life in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Ontario, and Manitoba.

By the 1930s, the factions within Canadian Toryism were associated with either the urban business elites, or with rural traditionalists from the country's hinterland. Over time, however, the term Blue Tory has come to embody the more ideologically neoliberal (in the manner of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan) elements in the party, while a Red Tory is a member of the more moderate wing of the party (in the manner of John Farthing and George Grant). They are generally unified by their adherence to the monarchy in Canada.