montagnard
/ˌmɑn.tənˈjɑɹd/
montagnard means A member of La Montagne (The Mountain), a French political group active 1792-1799 during the French Revolution of 1789.
montagnard is pronounced /ˌmɑn.tənˈjɑɹd/.
Why “montagnard” is a great word
Montagnard denotes a member of the indigenous peoples of Vietnam’s Central Highlands or a radical democrat of the French Revolutions of 1789 and 1848. From French montagnard (“mountaineer, mountain-dweller”), from montagne (“mountain”), from Old French montaigne, from Early Medieval Latin montānia (“mountain”), a collective based on Latin mont- (“mountain”), from Proto-Indo-European *men- (“to stand out, to tower”). The French political groups were so named because they occupied the highest benches in the assembly. Unlike “highlander,” a general geographic term devoid of specific cultural or political weight, or “Jacobin,” the name of the broader revolutionary club, montagnard carries the precise charge of either ethnic identity or radical faction. It is the mist-shrouded peaks of the Annamite Range, the echo of oratory from the highest rows of the Convention, and the defiant silence of those who dwell apart—a word for the altitude that makes one simultaneously above the world and outside it.
Etymology
Via French montagnard (“mountaineer, mountain-dweller”), from Middle French montaigne from Old French montaigne from Early Medieval Latin montānia (“mountain”), a collective based on Latin mont- (“mountain”), from Proto-Italic *monts, from Proto-Indo-European *men- (“to stand out, to tower”). The French group was so called because they sat on the topmost benches.
noun
- A member of La Montagne (The Mountain), a French political group active 1792-1799 during the French Revolution of 1789.
- A member of La Montagne (The Mountain), Democratic Socialists active 1849-1852 in the French Second Republic after the French Revolution of 1848.
- A member of the indigenous peoples of the Central Highlands of Vietnam.
- A member of the Khmer Loeu, highland tribes in Cambodia.
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.
- huguenot 77% match — A member of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th century. vs montagnard →
- jacobin 77% match — Synonym of Dominican, a member of the Dominican Order, particularly its French chapter. vs montagnard →
- maquisard 77% match — A member of a resistance or guerrilla movement, originally and chiefly that of the French during the German occupation of 1940-5. vs montagnard →
- camisard 76% match — One of the Huguenots of the Cévennes region of south-central France, who rose up against the persecutions which followed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. vs montagnard →
- adivasi 76% match — A member of a heterogeneous set of ethnic and tribal groups considered the aboriginal population of South Asia. vs montagnard →
- communard 75% match — A person who lives in a commune. vs montagnard →
- commune 75% match — A small community, often rural, whose members share in the ownership of property, and in the division of labour; the members of such a community. vs montagnard →
- cagot 75% match — A member of a persecuted minority in south-western France. vs montagnard →