Meanings
bristlers1
- pluralplural of bristler
Bristlers2
- derogatoryhistoricalpluralplural onlyslangA group of German refugees with Marxist leanings in 1849 who scattered to Switzerland, France and England.
In the spring of 1851, then, the "lowest of the low" invented the "Bristlers", whom Vogt pilfered from his Field Marshal in the autumn of 1859.
1981, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx, Frederick Engels: collected works, page 392 more examples
The manufacturers agreed not to maintain any relations with the Bristlers' Trade Union, and they also agreed to introduce piecework wages where such wages did not exist, and to reduce the scale of piece-work where they did exist.
1965, James Mavor, An economic history of Russia - Volume 2, page 431Large parts of the book dealt with police agents among the democratic and socialist Forty-eighters abroad, and much of this was connected to Marx, who appeared as a sinister figure in the background orchestrating the undoing of innocent workers attracted to the cause through the Brimstone Gang (Schwefelbande) or the Bristlers (Bürstenheimer), both named after groups of German refugees in Switzerland.
2006, Christine Lattek, Revolutionary Refugees: German Socialism in Britain, 1840-1860, →ISBN, page 211
Origin
A calque of German Bürstenheimer, coined by Abt (secretary to the Bishop of Freiburg) and applied to the Workers' Educational Association in Geneva.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
bristlers. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bristlers
“bristlers.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bristlers. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “bristlers,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bristlers.
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