jackbooted

[jak-boo-tid]

adjective

1. wearing jackboots.

2. brutally and oppressively bullying.

   a jackbooted militarism.

Word History and Origins

Origin of jackbooted¹

First recorded in 1840–50; jackboot + -ed ³

Example Sentences

Komasa knows authoritarianism in its most flagrant, brutal forms, but his new film “Anniversary” imagines a scenario in which fascism doesn’t stomp in, jackbooted, but creeps, pretty and ladylike, on kitten-heeled feet.

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Fosse never visually depicts or provides audio documentation of the Nazis breaking up his enchanted Kit Kat Club, though the jackbooted men sitting in front rows at the final performance assuredly do so in the millisecond after the film fades to black.

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Generally, jackbooted people in uniform will take you out of your life at a purposefully planned “bad time” to foment maximum anxiety and shame and to generate complete psychological surrender.

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Claiming that the internet had obviated the daily newspaper’s previous responsibility to offer “a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views,” Bezos argued that “free markets and personal liberties are right for America,” and that he was excited for Post Opinion to focus on those topics going forward—as opposed to, you know, the jackbooted horrors of the second Trump administration.

Read more on Slate

His immediate predecessor in the 8 p.m. weeknight slot, Tucker Carlson, spun baroque ethnonationalist theories while fluffing dictatorial strongmen—but Watters is hardly articulate, imaginative, or ambitious enough to follow in Carlson’s jackbooted footsteps.

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