city in Spain, Roman Pompeiopolis, named for Pompey the Great, Roman military leader who founded it 68 B.C.E.
"one of a military people who inhabit the steppes of southern Russia, 1590s, from Russian kozak, from Turkish kazak "adventurer, guerrilla, nomad," from qaz "to wander." The same Turkic root is the source of the people-name Kazakh and the nation of Kazakhstan.
also Coblenz, city in Germany, founded by the Romans as a military outpost c. 8 B.C.E., from Latin ad confluentes "at the confluence" (see confluence); so named for its situation at the confluence of the Rhine and Moselle rivers.
masc. proper name, also Charley, familiar form of Charles (also see -y (3)); 1965 in Vietnam War U.S. military slang for "Vietcong, Vietcong soldier," probably suggested by Victor Charlie, military communication code for V.C. (as abbreviation of Viet Cong), perhaps strengthened by World War II slang use of Charlie for Japanese soldiers, which itself is probably an extension of the 1930s derogatory application of Charlie to any Asian man, from fictional Chinese detective Charlie Chan.
Other applications include "a London night watchman" (1812); "a goatee beard" (1834, from portraits of King Charles I and his contemporaries); "a fox" (1857); in plural "a woman's breasts" (1874); "an infantryman's pack" (World War I); and "a white man" (Mr. Charlie), 1960, American English, from African-American vernacular.
in reference to Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), Corsican-born French military leader and dictator; the surname is the French form of Italian Buonaparte, from buona "good" (from Latin bonus "good;" see bonus) + parte "part, share, portion" (from Latin partem "a part, piece, a share, a division," from PIE root *pere- (2) "to grant, allot"). Related: Bonapartist; Bonapartism.
