red-shirt

Noun

Red Shirt (plural Red Shirts)

1. A member of the UDD (National United Front for Democracy) who supported Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra (and subsequent Thaksin-affiliated parties) in the conflict in Thailand after the 2006 coup d'etat.
   • This need became clear with the emergence and conflicts between the Yellow Shirt movement (2005–13) and the Red Shirt movement (2007–present).2014, N. Kim -, Multicultural Challenges and Sustainable Democracy in Europe and East Asia, →ISBN
2. (historical) A follower of Giuseppe Garibaldi, an Italian revolutionary in the later nineteenth century.
   • Garibaldi started his career as a revolutionist in Nice where he had been born. Compelled to flee to South America, he became a noted crusader for the abstract principle of liberty. He returned to Italy for the revolution of 1848 and won renown as leader of the Red Shirts.1945, Jay Monaghan, Abraham Lincoln Deals with Foreign Affairs, →ISBN, page 133
3. (historical) A member of a paramilitary arm of the Democratic party in Mississippi and South Carolina at the end of Reconstruction.
   • His narrative suggests that psychological factors shaped his decision to become a Red Shirt. Although his Republican father was murdered by Democrats in 1870, Fleming recalled being part of a Red Shirt group that killed the man in 1876.1998, Edmund L. Drago, Hurrah for Hampton!, →ISBN

See all 5 meanings of red shirt