Brownshirt

See also: brownshirt and Brown Shirt

English[edit]

Calque of German Braunhemd, the nickname for a member of the Sturmabteilung, in reference to their brown uniforms. Equivalent to brown +‎ shirt.

Brownshirt (plural Brownshirts)

(historical) A uniformed member of the German Nazi Party (NSDAP), especially a storm trooper of the Sturmabteilung.
- 1977, Patrick Leigh Fermor, “The Munich Hofbräuhaus”, in A Time of Gifts:
  A heavy arched door was pouring a raucous and lurching party of Brownshirts on to the trampled snow. […] Half-way up the vaulted stairs a groaning Brownshirt, propped against the wall on a swastika'd arm, was unloosing, in a staunchless gush down the steps, the intake of hours.
Any member of a fascist party; any person accused of being fascist or neo-Nazi.

a uniformed member of the Nazi party