sans-culotte
Americannoun
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(in the French Revolution) a revolutionary of the poorer class: originally a term of contempt applied by the aristocrats but later adopted as a popular name by the revolutionaries.
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any extreme republican or revolutionary.
noun
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(originally) a revolutionary of the poorer class
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(later) any revolutionary, esp one having extreme republican sympathies
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any revolutionary extremist
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of sans-culotte
1780–90; < French: literally, without knee breeches
Explanation
A sans-culotte was a member of a working class political group in 18th- and 19th-century France. The sans-culottes played a large role in the French Revolution. The term sans-culotte means "without breeches" in French. This doesn’t mean that these radical partisans didn’t wear pants, but instead refers to their lower-class status. Wealthy, aristocratic French men typically wore knee-length breeches made of silk, while the working class sans-culottes dressed more practically, in long trousers. The group advocated for direct democracy, taxing the rich, and the idea that everyone was created equal.
Vocabulary lists containing sans-culotte
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.
See Examples For:
Bastille Day, marking 229 years since the sans-culotte decided they’d had enough of the Ancien Régime and stormed the fortress, a crucial stage of the French Revolution.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 14, 2018
He created effective turns for small characters, and the Met’s solid supporting cast includes the robust bass Robert Pomakov as Mathieu, a sans-culotte.
From New York Times ● Mar. 25, 2014
A self-styled "evolutionary socialist," he hit the pukka sahibs of Malaya and its environs like a revolutionary sans-culotte.
From Time Magazine Archive
Instead, she gets Seymour Moskowitz, who pursues her with the fierce dedication of a sans-culotte storming the Bastille.
From Time Magazine Archive
A sans-culotte, who lived near by and whose suspicions had been aroused, followed him one evening.
From Which? or, Between Two Women by Kendell, Laura E.
The sans-culottes of the French Revolution and the yellow vests of the French revolt centuries later.
From New York Times ● Jun. 16, 2020
It was an uprising of enslaved people—the “true sans-culottes of the colonies,” according to one French Republican leader—in Saint-Domingue that forced the 1794 abolition of slavery.
From The New Yorker ● Apr. 12, 2019
"I've studied this period — my graduation collection was inspired by the incroyables, the sans-culottes, the French Revolution. "
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 2, 2016
During the French Revolution, Parisian women had requested the right to wear trousers and working-class revolutionaries became known as "sans-culottes" for wearing trousers instead of the silk-knee breeches preferred by the bourgeoisie.
From BBC ● Feb. 4, 2013
The French and English prisoners gave money to the sans-culottes for showing the body.
From The Last Words of Distinguished Men and Women (Real and Traditional) by Marvin, Frederic Rowland
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.
