Sassenach
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of Sassenach
1765–75; < Scots Gaelic Sasunnach, Irish Sasanach English, English person, Protestant, Middle Irish Saxanach, derivative of Saxain, Sagsuin, Sachsain the Saxons, England ≪ Late Latin Saxonēs; see Saxon
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.
“The Roman, not the Sassenach, was for him the tyrant of the islanders,” Joyce wrote in “Stephen Hero,” referring to the Catholic Church and the English, respectively.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 24, 2026
Young girl Mouse Haggis Sassenach Whose locks were like the raven, but are now like the snaw, in a much-loved Burns poem?
From The Guardian • Jan. 25, 2011
He prefers to be known by his Gaelic name, Domnhall Ua Buachalla, but will answer to Donal, and insists that his office is not that of a Sassenach governor general, but a good Gaelic Seanascal.
From Time Magazine Archive
Though there is little love lost between the Irish and the English, between the Scots and their Sassenach cousins there is a friendlier feeling.
From Time Magazine Archive
They were imbeciles, as well as being the Sassenach, and she herself was a saint She was, she discovered with a change of posture, interested in nothing but her darling boys.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
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.
