Chauvinist

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An individual who exhibits an unreasonable bias towards their own gender, often promoting its dominance while disregarding others
2. A person who demonstrates a strong and often aggressive belief in the superiority of their gender, leading to discriminatory attitudes
3. A person who holds an exaggerated and often uncritical allegiance to their own gender, frequently resulting in the disparagement of others

Etymology: Nicolas Chauvin was a soldier of Napoleon's armies, celebrated in French popular culture for a devotion to the Emperor that bordered on the absurd. The name was later fixed to a rather different idea: an excessive, uncritical belief in the superiority of one's own group, and eventually of one sex over the other. The word "chauvinist" grew from the noun "chauvinism," which took the surname into English as a general term for blind patriotism. Its sense then narrowed to men who believe their own sex is naturally superior, and "chauvinist" was used for such men in the same way. The word is also a curious near-relative of "Calvinist." Both derive from different forms of the same name, so the two look and sound alike without one being formed from the other.

Synonyms: jingoist, nationalist, partisan, bigot, sexist

Antonyms: egalitarian, liberal, tolerant, open-minded, progressive