| sit-in | |
| —n | |
| 1. | a form of civil disobedience in which demonstrators occupy seats in a public place and refuse to move as a protest |
| 2. | another term for sit-down strike |
| —vb | |
| 3. | ( |
| 4. | ( |
| 5. | to organize or take part in a sit-in |
| a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison. |
| a fool or simpleton; ninny. |
sit-in
a tactic of nonviolent civil disobedience. The demonstrators enter a business or a public place and remain seated until forcibly evicted or until their grievances are answered. Attempts to terminate the essentially passive sit-in often appear brutal, thus arousing sympathy for the demonstrators among moderates and noninvolved individuals. Following Mahatma Gandhi's teaching, Indians employed the sit-in to great advantage during their struggle for independence from the British. Later, the sit-in was adopted as a major tactic in the civil-rights struggle of American blacks; the first prominent sit-in occurred at a Greensboro (North Carolina) lunch counter in 1960. Student activists adopted the tactic later in the decade in demonstrations against the Vietnam War.
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