jacobin








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, especially 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.

noun

  1. a member of the most radical club founded during the French Revolution, which overthrew the Girondists in 1793 and, led by Robespierre, instituted the Reign of Terror
  2. a leftist or extreme political radical
  3. a French Dominican friar
  4. (sometimes not capital) a variety of fancy pigeon with a hood of feathers swept up over and around the head

adjective

  1. of, characteristic of, or relating to the Jacobins or their policies

early 14c., of the order of Dominican friars whose order built its first convent near the church of Saint-Jacques in Paris, from Old French Jacobin (13c.) “Dominican friar,” also, in the Middle East, “a Copt;” see Jacob. The Revolutionary extremists took up quarters there October 1789. Used generically of radicals and allegedly radical reformers since 1793. Related: Jacobinism.

57 queries 0.604