chauvinist
Americannoun
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a person who is aggressively and blindly patriotic, especially one devoted to military glory.
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a person who believes one gender is superior to the other, as a or a
Other Word Forms
- chauvinistic adjective
Etymology
Origin of chauvinist
First recorded in 1860–65; chauvin(ism) ( def. ) + -ist ( def. )
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Explanation
A chauvinist is someone who blindly and enthusiastically believes in the superiority of his cause or people. If you grew up in New York and refuse to eat at any pizzeria beyond a five-mile radius of the Empire State Building, you could be described as a New York pizza chauvinist. The word chauvinist comes from Nicholas Chauvin, a French soldier — probably fictional — who was so devoted to Napoleon that he continued to zealously support the emperor even after Napoleon rejected him. The put-down “male chauvinist pig” describes a man who believes that women are not as intelligent or worthy of respect as men. Often when we hear the word chauvinist, we think of arrogant men.
Vocabulary lists containing chauvinist
Ender's Game
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Before the Ever After
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Vocabulary Video Contest (2013) - List 1
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
On 20 September 1973, an estimated 90 million people around the world watched Billie Jean King beat self-proclaimed chauvinist Bobby Riggs in a best-of-five match at the Houston Astrodome.
From BBC • Dec. 27, 2025
AP: A year later, you famously beat self-proclaimed chauvinist Bobby Riggs in the “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match viewed by millions on TV.
From Seattle Times • Jun. 23, 2022
What I recall most vividly aren’t details of the wildly hyped tennis match between Billie Jean King, 29, one of the world’s top female players, and former champion Bobby Riggs, a 55-year-old self-proclaimed male chauvinist.
From Washington Post • Aug. 26, 2021
The movie, a major sleeper in fourth place in its ninth week, will forever be remarkable for Bruce Willis’s hero journey from chauvinist cop to husband of the year.
From New York Times • Oct. 2, 2020
But this last alternative seems to me to be special pleading: I am, reluctantly, a self-confessed carbon chauvinist.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
