also Ismaelite, 1570s, in reference to a Shi'ite Muslim sect, from Arabic Isma'iliy, the name of the sect that after 765 C.E. followed the Imamship through descendants of Ismail (Arabic for Ishmael), deceased eldest son of Jafar, the sixth Imam, rather than his surviving younger son.
Lady of Coventry (died 1067) and wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia. Her legend is first recorded by Roger of Wendover 100 years after her death. The "Peeping Tom" aspect was added by 1659. The name is a typical Anglo-Saxon compound, apparently *God-gifu "good gift."
1961, member of the U.S. anti-communist John Birch Society, which was founded 1958 and named for John Birch, U.S. Baptist missionary and Army Air Forces captain killed by Chinese Communists shortly after the end of World War II, who is considered the first American casualty of the Cold War.
seminal rock and pop group formed in Liverpool, England; named as such 1960 (after a succession of other names), supposedly by then-bassist Stuart Sutcliffe, from beetles (on model of Buddy Holly's band The Crickets) with a pun on the musical sense of beat. Their global popularity dates to 1963.
Old English Pentecosten "Christian festival on seventh Sunday after Easter," from Late Latin pentecoste, from Greek pentekostē (hēmera) "fiftieth (day)," fem. of pentekostos, from pentekonta "fifty," from pente "five" (from PIE root *penkwe- "five"). The Hellenic name for the Old Testament Feast of Weeks, a Jewish harvest festival observed on 50th day of the Omer (see Leviticus xxiii.16).
the form of Old French written in England from the Norman Conquest (1066) through the Middle Ages; the administrative and legal language of England 12c.-17c.; the name is attested from 1887 and was popularized, if not coined, by Skeat.
And Frenssh she spak ful faire and fetisly,
After the scole of Stratford-atte-Bowe,
For Frenssh of Parys was to hir unknowe.
[Chaucer]
masc. proper name, from French, from German Lambert, from Old High German Lambreht, from lant "land" (see land (n.)) + beraht "bright" (from PIE root *bhereg- "to shine; bright, white."). Old English cognate was Landbeorht. The English popularity of the name 12c. and after probably is due to immigration from Flanders, where St. Lambert of Maestricht was highly venerated. Attested as a surname from mid-12c.
"Russian radical socialist of the revolutionary period," 1917, from Russian bol'shevik (plural bol'sheviki), from bol'shiy "greater," comparative of adjective bol'shoy "big, great" (as in Bolshoi Ballet), from Old Church Slavonic boljiji "larger," from PIE root *bel- "strong" (source also of Sanskrit balam "strength, force," Greek beltion "better," Phrygian balaios "big, fast," Old Irish odbal "strong," Welsh balch "proud;" Middle Dutch, Low German, Frisian pal "strong, firm").
The faction of the Russian Social Democratic Worker's Party after a split in 1903 that was either "larger" or "more extreme" (or both) than the Mensheviks (from Russian men'shij "less"); after they seized power in 1917, the name was applied generally in English to Russian communists, then also to anyone opposed to an existing order or social system. Bolshevism is recorded from 1917.
1889, Beha'i, "mystical, tolerant Iranian religion," founded by a Mirza Ali Mohammed ibn Radhik, a Shiraz merchant executed for heresy in 1850, and named for his leading disciple, Baha Allah (Persian "splendor of God;" ultimately from Arabic). It also is sometimes called Babism, after the name taken by the founder, Bab-ed-Din, "gate of the faith."
