When people and fictional characters became everyday words.
chauvinism (n.)
Collection
The Names That Remained
Chauvinism is a blind belief that one’s own group is better than others. The word is French, chauvinisme, and it is named after Nicolas Chauvin, a soldier who stayed devoted to Napoleon long after the Empire had ended.12
Chauvin is known as a character. He appears in La Cocarde tricolore, a popular comic play by the brothers Théodore and Hippolyte Cogniard, staged in 1831.12
Whether a real Chauvin stood behind him has never been settled. The name was common in Napoleon’s army, and an 1822 memoir mentions a Chauvin who came back with Napoleon from Elba, but no one has shown that he was the man.1
English took chauvinism in 1840 for excessive patriotism. Male chauvinist was in use by 1936 and became common after 1969.1
The speech was full of national chauvinism.