festival in honor of Apollo on the 7th of Pyanepsion (fourth month of the Attic calendar, corresponding to October-November), from Greek Pyanepsia (plural), literally "the feast of cooking beans," from pyanos, variant of kyamos, name of a kind of bean, a word of unknown origin (perhaps foreign or Pre-Greek), + epsein "to boil, cook." At this festival a dish of pulse was offered to the god.
fem. proper name, a familiar form of Sarah. Sadie Hawkins Day (1939) is from name of a character in U.S. newspaper cartoon strip "Li'l Abner," by Al Capp (1909-1979); in reference to a day in early November on which women take the lead in romantic matters.
German Bolshevik of November 1918 uprising, 1919, from German Spartakist, from Spartacus (d.71 B.C.E.), Thracian leader of Roman Servile War (73-71 B.C.E.), ultimately from Sparta; the name was adopted 1916 as a pseudonym by Karl Liebknecht in his political tracts; thence Spartacist for the socialist revolutionary group he founded with Rosa Luxemburg and Franz Mehring.
early 14c., "Dominican friar," from Old French Jacobin (13c.) "Dominican friar" (also, in the Middle East, "a Copt"); so called because the order built its first convent near the church of Saint-Jacques in Paris. The masc. proper name Jacques is from Late Latin Iacobus, for which see Jacob.
The Revolutionary extremists ("Society of the Friends of the Constitution") made their club headquarters there October 1789 and supported Robespierre during the Terror. They were suppressed along with him in November 1794 and many members executed. In English, the word quickly became a scare-word for the worst excesses of the French Revolution, and since 1793 it has been used generically and often inappropriately of allegedly radical politicians and reformers. Related: Jacobinism; Jacobinic; Jacobinical.
phonetic coding system, 1959, from sound (n.1) + brand-name suffix -ex.
1919, from Leon Trotsky, assumed name of Russian revolutionary leader Lev Davidovich Bronstein (1879-1940) + -ite (1).
southern Coastal Salishan group of Native Americans, from a native Lushootseed name, probably folk-etymologized by influence of Sauk (1).
fem. proper name, from Latin Hortensia, fem. of Hortensius, a Roman gens name, related to hortus "garden" (from PIE root *gher- (1) "to grasp, enclose").