Jacobin definition
Other Word Forms
Noun
Origin of jacobin
- Middle English Dominican friar from French from Old French (frere) jacobin (translation of Medieval Latin (frāter) Iacōbīnus Jacobinic brother) (from Iacōbus James) (after the church of Saint Jacques in Paris, near which the friars built their first convent) Sense 2, from the fact that the Jacobins first met in the convent
From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition