Sansculotte - a podcast by Word of the Day

Sansculotte is a noun that refers to an extreme revolutionary.

Our word of the day comes from French, where its literal translation is ‘without knee breeches,’ a look you’d expect from a poor person. This is how sansculette came to refer to a French revolutionary from the lower classes. More recently, it has come to refer to any radical revolutionary regardless of class background or national origin.

In my college days, I organized a boycott of the cafeteria until they agreed to offer more than one flavor of pudding. That was as close as I came to being a sansculotte in my youth.

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