SANS-CULOTTE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Sans-culotte

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noun

Sans-culotte n.

A fellow without breeches; a ragged fellow; a name of reproach given in the first French revolution to the extreme republican party, who rejected breeches as an emblem peculiar to the upper classes or aristocracy, and adopted pantaloons.

Hence, an extreme or radical republican; a violent revolutionist; a Jacobin.

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Etymology of 'Sans-culotte'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Sans-culotte" Quotes from Famous Books

... whose existence I was not certain, clinging miserably to the little that was left of what the world of sunshine had known as Paul Lamar, gentleman, scientist, and connoisseur of life; sans philosophy, sans hope, and—sans-culotte. ...

— Under the Andes • Rex Stout

... manipulators, had succeeded in terrifying them,—a certain method of leading them wherever they thought proper. These chiefs, unable any longer to employ usefully those old bugbears, the terms "Jacobin" and "sans-culotte," decidedly too hackneyed, had furbished up the word "demagogue." These ringleaders, trained to all sorts of schemes and manoeuvres, exploited successfully the word "Mountain," and agitated to good purpose that ...

— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo