Etymology

bolshevism

Bol·shev·i·sm
B3O1L1S1H4E1V4I1S1M3

Today it means: The strategy used by the Bolsheviks in attempting to gain power in Russia. Full definition →

Russian большеви́зм ← Proto-Indo-European *bel- ← Proto-Slavic *-ьstvo
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The story

  1. Proto-Slavic · derived from*-ьstvo
  2. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*bel-
  3. Russian · borrowed fromбольшеви́зм“Bolshevism”
  4. English todayBolshevism

Borrowed from Russian большеви́зм (bolʹševízm, “Bolshevism”), from большинство (bolʹšinstvo, “majority, most”) (referring to the fact that the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party won on the majority of the important issues at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1903) + -и́зм (-ízm, “-ism”, suffix forming the names of systems, schools of thought or theories based on the names of their subjects or objects). большинство is derived from большо́й (bolʹšój, “great, large”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bel-) + -ство (-stvo, suffix forming a neuter noun, usually an abstract noun denoting a relation, social status, scientific discipline, quality or state) (from Proto-Slavic *-ьstvo (suffix forming nouns denoting a condition or state)).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.