Etymology

tankie

tank·ie
T1A1N1K5I1E1

Today it means: A member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who supported the Soviet Union's policy of crushing revolts in Hungary in the 1950s and Czechoslovakia in the 1960s by sending tanks into those countries. Full definition →

First used 1950s
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

From tank + -ie (diminutive suffix). Sense 1 and, by extension, sense 2 were named for the tanks used by the Soviet Union against uprisings in Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

First known use, by meaning

  • from 1950s A member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who supported the Soviet Union's policy of crushing revolts in Hungary in the 1950s and Czechoslovakia in the 1960s by sending tanks into those countries.
  • from 2010s A supporter of policies and actions by the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, or other authoritarian socialist governments.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.