patriotn.adj.

Etymology: < Middle French, French patriote fellow-countryman (c1460; also patriot (1599)), person who loves his or her country (1561 as patriot , chiefly with modifying adjective, as bon patriot , etc.; also sometimes used among the Huguenots to denote their fellow believers; 1562 in bon patriote ; also as adjective in this sense) < post-classical Latin patriota fellow-countryman (6th cent.) < ancient Greek πατριώτης (see note), partly < πάτριος of one's fathers ( < πατρ- , πατήρ father (see father n.) + -ιος , suffix forming adjectives) + -ώτης -ote suffix, and partly < πατριά clan (see patriarch n.) + -ώτης -ote suffix. Compare Italian patriota (a1536; c1400 as patrioto in sense ‘fellow-countryman’), Spanish patriota (1535–52 in sense ‘fellow-countryman’), Dutch patriot (a1579 in goede patriotten (plural), with reference to the war against Spain), German Patriot (second half of the 16th cent.; 1579 with reference to the Huguenots).Ancient Greek πατριώτης is used of barbarians, who had a common πατρίς (as opposed to Greeks who were called πολῖται , having a common πόλις ); in this sense it derives from πάτριος . It is also used of members of a clan, in which case it derives from πατριά . Usage in the Netherlands in the 1570s, when the term was applied to followers of William of Orange, a leader in the Dutch War of Independence, appears to have been significant in the shift in sense from ‘fellow-countryman’ to ‘lover of one's country’: see A. Duke Reformation & Revolt in Low Countries (1990) 191. The form patriotte is perhaps after the Dutch plural form patriotten. In sense A. 3 perhaps influenced by association with patron n.