Etymologically
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partisan

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English has two homographs spelled partisan: a supporter of a party or cause, and a long-bladed spear; both go back to the Italian word for a member of a faction.[1][2][3]

Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈpɑː.tɪˌzæn/, /ˌpɑː.tɪˈzæn/[4]
  • US: /ˈpɑɹ.tɪ.zən/, /ˈpɑɹ.tə.zən/[4]

partisan1 supporter

Etymology

The supporter is borrowed from Middle French partisan,[1][5][6][2] recorded in French from the late 15th century,[1] adapted from a northern Italian dialect form, partezan or partisano,[6][7][3] corresponding to standard Italian partigiano (“member of a faction, partner”), which is found from 1312 for a defender of a party.[1][5][6] That word is built on parte (“part, party”), from Latin pars (“part, share; faction”),[5][6][8] with the suffix -igiano, found in ethnic names such as parmigiano and in artigiano and cortigiana, the sources of artisan and courtesan.[1][8][6] Etymonline traces the Latin noun to Proto-Indo-European *perh₃- (“to grant, allot”).[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

An adherent or supporter of a party, cause or person, especially a zealous one: 1555, in Richard Eden's translation of Peter Martyr's Decades;[1][5][6][2] in early use often a supporter kept as a bodyguard.[1]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline notes that from the start the word often implied judgment clouded by loyalty to a party.[5] In military use, from 1692, a partisan was a member of a small band of light or irregular troops acting on its own,[1][6] later (1706) also the commander of such a band;[1] French had the sense of a combatant in a small unit from 1678.[1] Etymonline links the shift to "guerrilla fighter" to the Peninsular War,[5] and Barnhart notes that the name became popular in the Second World War for the resistance groups of eastern Europe and the Balkans,[6] partly after the Serbian and Russian forms of the word.[1] The adjective was military at first (1708), describing irregular warfare;[1][6][5] its political sense, one-sided or blindly devoted to a party, is dated 1805 in the OED and 1842 in Etymonline and Barnhart.[1][5][6] Johnson (1755) defined the noun as "an adherent to a faction".[9]

Timeline

  • 1555 – an adherent of a party or cause.[1][6]
  • 1692 – a member of an irregular military band.[1][6]
  • 1706 – the leader of such a band.[1]
  • 1708 – adjective, of irregular warfare.[1][5]
  • 1805 – adjective, one-sided, prejudiced;[1] 1842 in Etymonline and Barnhart.[5][6]
  • 1917 – a resistance fighter, especially in eastern Europe.[1]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A strong, often uncritical supporter of a party, cause or person.
  2. A member of an armed resistance group fighting an occupying force, especially in Italy or the Balkans in the Second World War; a guerrilla.

Adjective

  1. Strongly or blindly devoted to one party or faction; one-sided: The debate turned bitterly partisan.
  2. Relating to or carried on by military partisans.

Word family

  • partisanship
  • bipartisan
  • nonpartisan

partisan2 spear

Etymology

The spear is borrowed from Middle French partizane,[1][3][2] first recorded in French in 1466,[1] from Italian partigiana, in northern regional use partesana,[1][2] the feminine of partigiano (“partisan, member of a faction”),[1][3][8] probably by shortening of a phrase with arma (“weapon”),[10][7][3] apparently because it was seen as the typical weapon of such fighters in 15th-century Italy.[1] In French the word was later altered to pertuisane by association with Old French pertuis (“hole”).[1][8][3] Weekley instead thought it probably connected with Old High German parta (“halberd”).[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

A spear with a long, triangular, double-edged blade and projections at its base, used by foot soldiers in the 16th and 17th centuries: 1542, in an inventory of Whitehall.[1][2]

Semantic evolution

From 1611 the weapon was also carried ceremonially by civic and other guards,[1] while between 1649 and 1820 partisan could mean a soldier or guard armed with one.[1] Shakespeare used it in Hamlet, and Johnson (1755) defined it as "a kind of pike or halberd".[9] According to Weekley the word fell out of use about 1700 and was revived by Walter Scott in The Lay of the Last Minstrel.[11]

Timeline

  • 1542 – a long-bladed spear.[1][2]
  • 1611 – such a spear carried ceremonially by guards.[1]
  • 1649 – a soldier armed with a partisan (until 1820).[1]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. (historical) A long-handled infantry spear of the 16th and 17th centuries, with a broad, double-edged blade and side projections, resembling a halberd.
  2. Such a weapon carried ceremonially by guards.

Usage notes

In British English the stress often falls on the last syllable, and in American English on the first.[2][12] The spelling partizan is also used.[13][3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  7. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  8. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  9. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  11. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  12. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  13. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins