Red Shirt

English

Alternative forms

• red shirt, red-shirt

Noun

Red Shirt (plural Red Shirts)

1. A member of the UDD (National United Front for Democracy) who supported Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra (and subsequent Thaksin-affiliated parties) in the conflict in Thailand after the 2006 coup d'etat.

   Coordinate term: Yellow Shirt

   • 2014, N. Kim -, Multicultural Challenges and Sustainable Democracy in Europe and East Asia, →ISBN:

     This need became clear with the emergence and conflicts between the Yellow Shirt movement (2005–13) and the Red Shirt movement (2007–present).

   • 2014, Pranee Liamputtong, Contemporary Socio-Cultural and Political Perspectives in Thailand, →ISBN:

     The landslide victory of Peau Thai, sweeping 53% of the seat shares, was without a doubt due to the strength of its Red Shirt supporters.

   • 2015, Pasuk Phongpaichit, Chris Baker, Unequal Thailand: Aspects of Income, Wealth and Power, →ISBN, page 152:

     At the time of the Bangkok floods in 2011, the store was a center for distributing goods donated through Red Shirt organizations.

   • 2017, Antonio L. Rappa, The King and the Making of Modern Thailand, →ISBN:

     The protests that led to the coup in 2014 were not as prolonged and damaging to the physical infrastructure as the Red Shirt protests of 2008 to 2012 had been.

2. (historical) A follower of Giuseppe Garibaldi, an Italian revolutionary in the later nineteenth century.
   • 1945, Jay Monaghan, Abraham Lincoln Deals with Foreign Affairs, →ISBN, page 133:

     Garibaldi started his career as a revolutionist in Nice where he had been born. Compelled to flee to South America, he became a noted crusader for the abstract principle of liberty. He returned to Italy for the revolution of 1848 and won renown as leader of the Red Shirts.

   • 1987, Herman J. Viola, Susan P. Viola, Giuseppe Garibaldi, →ISBN, page 21:

     The Red Shirts lay there for about 15 minutes. All the while. Garibaldi was moving among his men, encouraging them, telling them to rest before the last push. At the same time, the Red Shirts could hear the Neapolitan officers telling their men to move forward and sweep the Italian patriots off their protecting ledge.

   • 2002, Mark A. Kishlansky, Patrick J. Geary, Patricia O'Brien, A Brief History of Western Civilization, →ISBN:

     In 1848, both Giuseppe Mazzini's Young Italy movement and Giuseppe Garibaldis Red Shirts had sought a united republican Italy achieved through direct popular action, but they had failed.

3. (historical) A member of a paramilitary arm of the Democratic party in Mississippi and South Carolina at the end of Reconstruction.
   • 1998, Edmund L. Drago, Hurrah for Hampton!, →ISBN:

     His narrative suggests that psychological factors shaped his decision to become a Red Shirt. Although his Republican father was murdered by Democrats in 1870, Fleming recalled being part of a Red Shirt group that killed the man in 1876.

   • 2006, Richard Zuczek, Encyclopedia of the Reconstruction Era, →ISBN, page 522:

     Earlier scholarship tried to maintain a distinction between the violence of the Ku Klux Klan and the ostensibly peaceful activities of the Red Shirts, but more recent scholarship has concluded that this was a distinction without a difference.

   • 2010, Jerry L. West, The Bloody South Carolina Election of 1876, →ISBN, page 83:

     It is likely that some of the younger men who had been too young to participate in the Civil War may have seen the Red Shirt companies as their opportunity to share in "the glory of battle" and were happy to join their fathers and older brothers.

4. (fiction) Alternative form of redshirt (“expendable minor character”)
   • 1995, Decipher, Inc, Star Trek Next Generation Customizable Card Game, →ISBN:

     This strong dilemma is also a fun one, and works particularly well against players who like to use the controversial "Red Shirt" tactic of sending down small away teams to attempt dilemmas.

   • 1997 October 1, Judy Williams, “Verdict-Red Shirt”, in alt.fan.la-femme.nikita (Usenet):

     This is a question about responsibility -- Did Michael send his partner (AKA Red Shirt) into the fire zone SPECIFICALLY to be killed? He was the one who suggested to Operations that they set up a rescue attempt -- TO FAIL.

   • 2009, David Perry, Rusel DeMaria, David Perry on Game Design: A Brainstorming Toolbox, page 242:

     Red Shirts are characters with only a little more personality than Random Grunts, but they are expendable, and you can expect them to get killed.

5. (US navy) Alternative form of redshirt (“sailor who handles ordinance”)
   • 1997, Peter Darman, Warfare at Sea, →ISBN, page 74:

     The Red Shirts are 'Ordies', or ordnance handlers.

   • 1988, George C. Wilson, Supercarrier: an inside account of life aboard the world's most powerful ship, the USS John F. Kenedy, →ISBN:

     The red lights of the Red Shirts joined the probing.

   • 2011, Max Gallimore, From Here to Caprock, →ISBN, page 266:

     The Red Shirts were the serious ones: they loaded and armed the weapons on the aircraft.

Proper noun

Red Shirt

1. A climbing route on Mount Yamnuska in the Canadian Rockies.
   • 1999, Accidents in North American Mountaineering, →ISBN, page 4:

     The accident occurred on the second pitch of the Red Shirt Route on Mount Yamnuska.

   • 2003, Ben Gadd, Chic Scott, Dave Dornian, The Yam: 50 Years of Climbing on Yamnuska, →ISBN, page 42:

     Later that summer Lofthouse and Greenwood teamed up with Heinz Kahl to climb the quintessential Yamnuska classic — Red Shirt.

   • 2006, Andy Genereux, Yamnuska Rock: The Crown Jewel of Canadian Rockies Traditional Climbing, →ISBN:

     In this section, several difficult climbs interweave with the original Red Shirt route established in 1962.

Further reading

• Red Shirts (United States) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia