Word.ws English Dictionary

sans-culotte

UK/sanzkjuːˈlɒt/

sans-culotte noun: a plebeian Parisian, especially a lower-class republican during the French Revolution.

Noun

sans-culotte (plural sans-culottes)

  1. A plebeian Parisian, especially a lower-class republican during the French Revolution.
    • One necessary fashion item for the dutiful sans-culotte, for example, was the red cap (bonnet rouge), which was alleged to recall the cap worn in Antiquity by emancipated slaves.2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 454
    • More's sensational attacks on Paine's Rights of Man [...] were echoed in prints, mass-produced by Reeves's Association, which contrasted the happy condition of the English cottager to the brutalised domestic life of the Parisian sans-culotte.2007, Barbara Taylor, ‘Guinea Pigs’, London Review of Books 29:3, page 10

Forms of sans-culotte

pluralsans-culottes
alternative formsansculotte

Origin of sans-culotte

From French sans-culotte (“(one) without pants”).

Questions about sans-culotte

What does sans-culotte mean?
Sans-culotte means a plebeian Parisian, especially a lower-class republican during the French Revolution.
What part of speech is sans-culotte?
Sans-culotte is a noun.
How do you pronounce sans-culotte?
Sans-culotte is pronounced /sanzkjuːˈlɒt/ (UK).
What is the plural of sans-culotte?
The plural of sans-culotte is sans-culottes.

Words near sans-culotte in the dictionary

  1. sans rivals
  2. sans serif
  3. sans serifs
  4. sans souci
  5. sans égal
  6. sans-culotte
  7. sans-culotterie
  8. sans-culottes
  9. sans-culottic
  10. sans-culottide
  11. sans-culottides

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sans-culotte (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “sans-culotte.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sans-culotte. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.