The story
- French · derived fromdéfaitisme
- English todaydefeatism
From defeat + -ism, after French défaitisme, coined in 1915 by Russian writer Grigorij Aleksinskij as a translation of Russian пораже́нчество (poražénčestvo), also coined by him as a derivation of порази́ть (porazítʹ, “to strike, defeat”).
Words from the same roots
Frenchdéfaitisme all →
defaitism
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.