bigoted

Etymology

It is formed from English bigot + -ed.^[2][3][4][5] The noun is from Middle French bigot (“religious hypocrite, person of excessive zeal”), of uncertain origin.^[2][4] It may ultimately be the oath by God in English, or a similar phrase in another Germanic language such as Old High German bī got, though the OED finds no evidence for this.^[2][4] Old French bigot, an insult for the Normans, is recorded in the 12th century, but its connection with the Middle French word is uncertain.^[2][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Obstinately attached to a belief or a faction, and intolerant of others: 1660, in J. Bellamy's translation of Origen's Against Celsus.^[2] Barnhart has 1645,^[4] Etymonline the 1640s,^[3] and Dictionary.com 1635–45.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The adjective has the sense of obstinate adherence a year before its base does: the noun bigot meant a religious hypocrite from 1598 and is recorded for an obstinate adherent only from 1661, and the OED compares the two.^[2][4] The earlier adjective bigot, from 1623, is now rare.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined bigoted as blindly prepossessed in favour of something, irrationally zealous, used with to, and spelled it with tt in his quotations from Garth and Swift.^[7] The word was first about religion and faction, and it now applies also to hatred of a racial or ethnic group, a sense Merriam-Webster Unabridged illustrates from 2000.^[8] In the West Riding of Yorkshire it could simply mean stupid or self-willed, with no reference to religion.^[9]

Timeline

• 1660 – obstinately attached to a belief or faction; intolerant of others.^[2] Barnhart has 1645.^[4]
• 17th–18th centuries – the second syllable sometimes stressed, on the evidence of metre.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Obstinately and unreasonably attached to a creed, opinion or party, and intolerant of others': a bigoted refusal to hear the other side.^[8][2][5]
2. Treating the members of a group, such as a racial or ethnic group, with hatred and intolerance.^[8]

Word family

• bigotedly
• bigotedness
• unbigoted

Related words

• bigot
• bigotry

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
7. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)