brownshirt

[broun-shurt]

noun

(often initial capital letter)

1. a Nazi.

2. a Nazi storm trooper.

Word History and Origins

Origin of brownshirt¹

1930–35; brown + shirt so called from the color of the shirt worn as part of the uniform

Example Sentences

In musical numbers throughout the film, the Emcee gleefully depicts adultery, profligacy and polyamory, and even satirizes Hitler’s mustache without consequences, while seemingly every other Berlin eccentric is getting a nightstick to the cranium for uttering a cross word to a brownshirt.

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He was supposed to be their very own Horst Wessel, the murdered brownshirt the Nazis used as a martyr to rally people to fascism.

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This will likely embolden more far-right people to get back into the brownshirt business.

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This brownshirt impulse has always been a part of Trumpism, as we saw with the rise of the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and other paramilitary gangs during the first Trump administration.

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But the most famous Nazi martyr, the Ashli Babbit of his day if you will, was a young anti-communist brownshirt by the name of Horst Wessel who was a known violent brawler in the pitched street battles between left and right during those days.

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