Allons, enfants de la patrie

July 14th is Bastille Day, marking the start of the French Revolution, and time to look at some words that we owe to the Revolutionaries. First up, perhaps surprisingly, is “aristocrat”. Although English had had the word “aristocracy”, derived from the Greek aristos (best) and kratos (strength), since the 1500s to designate government by the privileged, it wasn't until the French started lopping their heads off that we started calling nobles “aristocrats”. On the other end of the social scale, we have the noun “commune” (ultimately from the Latin communis meaning “in common”) designating the smallest administrative jurisdiction established under the Revolutionary government. This word took on a life of its own in English, to designate groups of people living communally, a sense which it does not have in French.