Meaning
Excessive, blind devotion to one's own country, group, or cause, or a conviction that one's own group is inherently superior. The oldest sense is fanatical patriotism, but since the mid-20th century the dominant use is in phrases like 'male chauvinism', naming entrenched prejudice rather than patriotism. The word is strongly negative in every register. Always pejorative; today it usually signals unreasonable group bias, most often in 'male chauvinism'. Regional use: General English (eponym via French, 1830s-1850s).
Origin
From French chauvinisme, named for Nicolas Chauvin, a veteran of Napoleon's army said to have been wounded again and again yet to have kept worshipping Napoleon long after his fall. Whether Chauvin was a real person is disputed: the name was common in Napoleon's forces and no individual has been firmly identified, though an 1822 Waterloo memoir does mention a devoted piqueur called Chauvin. His legend was fixed by the Cogniard brothers' 1831 vaudeville La Cocarde tricolore, and French chauvinisme is recorded from 1839. English adopted the word soon after - Etymonline dates English use to 1840 and Merriam-Webster gives first known use as 1851, in the blind-patriotism sense. The male-supremacy sense spread in the late 1960s, with 'chauvinist pig' following by 1970.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- chauvinist
- chauvinistic
- chauvinistically
- male chauvinism
Usage Examples
- The department's chauvinism toward rival faculties sank every proposal for joint research.
- Reviewers criticized the travel show's breezy chauvinism about small-town life.
- Her thesis traces how economic chauvinism shaped the trade debates of the 1980s.