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Jacobin

 - 3 dictionary results

Jac⋅o⋅bin

  [jak-uh-bin]
–noun
1. (in the French Revolution) a member of a radical society or club of revolutionaries that promoted the Reign of Terror and other extreme measures, active chiefly from 1789 to 1794: so called from the Dominican convent in Paris, where they originally met.
2. an extreme radical, esp. in politics.
3. a Dominican friar.
4. (lowercase) one of a fancy breed of domestic pigeons having neck feathers that hang over the head like a hood.
Use Jacobin in a Sentence
Origin:
1275–1325; ME Jacobin < OF (frere) jacobin < ML (frater) Jacōbinus. See Jacob, -in 1

Related forms:
Jac⋅o⋅bin⋅ic, Jac⋅o⋅bin⋅i⋅cal, adjective
Jac⋅o⋅bin⋅ism, noun
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2010.
Cite This Source Link To Jacobin
Jac·o·bin   (jāk'ə-bĭn)   
n.  

  1. A radical or extreme leftist.

  2. A radical republican during the French Revolution.

  3. A Dominican friar.


[Middle English, Dominican friar, from French, from Old French (frere) jacobin (translation of Medieval Latin (frāter) Iacōbīnus, Jacobinic brother, from Iacōbus, James, after the church of Saint Jacques in Paris, near which the friars built their first convent). Sense 2, from the fact that the Jacobins first met in the convent.]
Jac'o·bin'ic, Jac'o·bin'i·cal adj., Jac'o·bin·ism n., Jac'o·bin·ize' (-bĭ-nīz') v.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

Jacobin 
c.1325, of the order of Dominican friars whose order built its first convent near the church of Saint-Jacques in Paris. The Revolutionary extremists took up quarters there 1789. Used generically of radicals and reformers since 1793.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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